Science is fiction is a project by Charo Garaigorta, which will be presented in the San Sebastián Aquarium on 15 July 2011 and can be viewed by anyone who visits the Aquarium until 2 October 2011.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT

Science is fiction (the title is taken from the book The Films of Jean Painlevé, published by MIT Press and Brico press, 2000). This director of scientific documentaries was, amongst other things, the first to film the male sea horse giving birth.

This project-experiment, on which Charo has been working for two years, started with the film of the same title, which will also be included in the exhibition. Beginning with this animal and the anecdote of its reproductive process, the work took shape through drawings, sculptures and an audiovisual piece. The whole of this emotional scenario – which began from the contemplation and study of this animal – will be on show in the San Sebastián Aquarium, an appropriate space that is coherent with this project, to which it gives greater meaning and scope, since different species of sea horse are on display in the Aquarium, as well as maritime environments that fit in perfectly with this initiative.

In the hands of the artist Charo Garaigoitia, this delivery is structured around a series of sculptures, paintings, drawings, fetishes, etc. These formats try to foster a dialogue and provide an interesting contextualization for the project, its development and diffusion. In short, it seems fitting to use an animal, the sea horse, as an argument for entering different areas of knowledge, and that these should be staged in the space of an aquarium. Besides, this is done using a novel exhibition premise and not the classical format of a temporary exhibition, as Charo’s work will be integrated into different showcases of the museum as well as into aquariums and other spaces, thus converting the project into an open dialogue that is more subtle than a mere chain of objects exhibited in a single space.

WHY THE SEA HORSE?

The sea horse has been chosen for several reasons, but firstly because of its strange sexual role. It must be said that it is the male that gives birth and represents the mystery of the depths of the sea. Everything about this animal seems to proceed from contradictory energies, the fact of its belonging to an imaginary linked to childhood, the extrusion of its body, strange in its form and functions. Energies that contradict that initial idea of tenderness.

The sea horse is the argument, the guiding thread for creating an interactive mechanism by which we will be able to establish a dialogue, an experience with the works that we will encounter along the route through the Aquarium. As we have said, these works are drawings, photographs, sculptures, books, cabinets of wonders and a video.

The context of the San Sebastián Aquarium allows the artist to enrich her work through the dialogues and games that will be set up along its routes. It is an explosion of content, inspiration, thoughts, knowledge and feelings that are gathered up over the course of the visit.

The exhibition will deal with questions as different from each other as the dichotomy between art and science. The latter two areas will articulated from a process of information, explanation and from thinking deeply about these contents. Contents that germinate, in our mind and in the minds of others.

How is the world to be explained from the perspective of science and from that of art? How should we look at these objects if, in spite of being art, they appear in a scientific context? And how do they look at us? How do words work if they are combined with images? What would the world be like if men gave birth? We are venturing into territory bordering on fiction and the real.

All these issues have been implicit in the concept “sea” since it arose; it includes the inexplicable, the obscure, fears, a metaphor for the depths of our mind, it is not surprising that this subject was of such interest to the surrealists.

It is extremely daring, and avant-garde, to pass along a glass corridor in which one sees fish from below, as if they were birds. It is something unreal and anti-natural in our lives, even though it captures our astonishment. The state of astonishment is a good starting point for understanding this work.

MATERIAL TO BE EXHIBITED

1. A Film made up of interviews with a varied group of people (children, adults, etc.) in two places: Bilbao and New York. They are given a sea horse and asked to talk about it. These sequences are mixed in the film with drawings and animations of sea horses. It is highly likely that this film will be completed a posteriori with other film sequences taken of visitors to the Aquarium, thus closing the cycle of this project.
2. Drawings, water colours, photographs, material from archives and books, all functioning as field work that contextualizes the exhibition.
3. Sculptures, bronze casts are being made from sea horses themselves.

Part of the material, like the drawings, photographs, some objects and sculptures, will be placed in showcases following the idea of the “pedagogic” organization of cabinets of wonders. All of these “artifacts” will attempt to respond to the human being’s deep need to find meanings and a connection with nature, and the permanent need to classify our knowledge.

CHARO GARAIGORTA’S BACKGROUND

In this museum context and using the perspective of critical pedagogy, she has done educational work with different cultural, ethnic, age, political, economic and gender groups, which show the multiple character of the modern world. This enables her to explore how we see and how “objects” look at us, depending on where they are and who is looking at them. This idea of context leads her to explore the possibility of showing her project Science is fiction in a space that does not necessarily belong to contemporary art, but to science. Science is fiction is presented as an experiment, as an experience where the project of an artist is contextualized in the space of the San Sebastián Aquarium.

She has exhibited her work in Sala Rekalde in Bilbao, Casa de América in Madrid, Bard College, New York, Parker’s Box, Art in General, Bronx Museum NY, Centro Cultural Sao Paolo, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Ceara, Brazil, amongst other places.

CONTACT THE ARTIST

CONTACT THE AQUARIUM