Fragilités. Printemps de septembre

English


Naia del Castillo's images show "people in the grip of the humdrum". A chair attached to a woman's skirt, a businessman's jacket hung on the head of a businesswoman, a bed-nightshirt that engulfs a sleeping woman. What is involved here is a line of thinking to do with our subordination to the things and people all around us. Who owns who? In Naia del Castillo's portraits, she also focuses on human relations and the emotional bonds which mix and mingle like hair on the face, hiding certain identities and constructing new ones.

MARTA GILI. Your work seems to be midway between photography, sculpture and performance. How do the three interrelate in your work?

NAIA DEL CASTILLO. Those three media combine according to my needs when I'm creating a piece. I don't consciously ask myself which one I'm going to use. It's an instinctive process. Everything springs from an inner core that is me and my connection with what is around me. The performance takes shape first of all because of my interest in the relationship between the space and the subject. Sculpture is the medium that allows me to render that relationship physical and photography the expressive medium for capturing and reinforcing that idea.

MG. When you photograph objects that "surpass themselves in carrying out their function", you seem to show up certain characteris-tics that are peculiar to the human condition. Is that a constant concern in your work?

NDC. Nowadays, yes. I see no difference between objects and people. Objects surround us and we organise our lives to obtain and own them. An object can refer to any and every circumstance, interest, or preoccupation of human beings. That is what I truly attempt to reflect in my work.


MARTA GILI 
Fragilités.
Printemps de septembre.
Ed. Actes Sud, 2002.



Mark