Diana Gardeneira
#Frontera

Visual artist, graphic designer, cultural manager and Ecuadorian- Costa Rican feminist activist. Her artistic career started focusing her attention in the formal and physical aspects of the space that she inhabits. Living abroad made her open up to other cultures and social realities, rebelling against everything that she has learned.

Feminism made her reflect on identity and normalized violence. This created a path for her feminist activism and community work in her city. She’s also cofounder of the art collective La Gallina Malcriada (The Misbehaved Hen), and together with 3 women artists, organize events to create feminine networks, so that women can get to know, support, and promote each other. During 2018 she won the Funds for the Promotion of Arts in Culture and Innovation from the Ministry of Culture for the project “I do everything.” (Yo si hago de todo.)  in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

ARTIST´S STATEMENT

I’ve been working in the series “Useless tactics of female empowerment” to find ways to visualize gender violence. The pieces function as shields and strategic ways to protect ourselves. They become places to reflect on the color of the acrylic strokes, fabrics, digital printing, and the objects being added in the clothing like buttons, zippers or safety pins. They are games that make me inhabit the city I live in, taking over a space that supposedly doesn’t belong to me.

I use different types of media like painting, drawing, photography, performance, installation, engraving. Also, thru social projects where the community has a defining role in its creation. I want to use art to question, reinvent and change my surroundings.

The pandemic gave my work an unexpected turn; It made me write more about my emotions, I have discovered new ways and I try to survive this time of world crisis. What we are experiencing it is not usual. I find it something normal to feel everything or perhaps nothing. Some works reflect my reflections on the feminine image and my own; as well as the construction of my identity, amid the pandemic chaos.

ABOUT FRONTIER

Being able to take this residence-workshop allowed me to live and reflect together with other artists, the many visions we have to understand borders. It was very valuable to listen to each other, think about other ways of existing, analyze how the thresholds affect us and generate new questions to continue thinking about this key moment that we are living. The work with my colleagues was special, we were able to share with artists from Brazil and Argentina, and from our own contexts create a sacred protection amulet to live in this pandemic.