Fuera de lugar (Out of Place) is an exhibition about belonging, places of memory, and the representation of particular moments and places crossed by History. Colloquially, the expression 'Fuera de lugar' is used to indicate an inappropriate tone or attitude.

The artists Daniel Otero Torres, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Leah Gordon, Patricia Esquivias, and Sammy Baloji, think about space as a significant point of contact between social processes and the transformations arising from the impossibility of pinpointing History materially and its complex counterpoint, the monument.

The artists present in this exhibition come from very diverse origins, and some are themselves, migrants. Consequently, they are very much aware of what it means to engage poetically, socially, and even politically with societies that are not the ones who birthed them. The title also refers to the autobiography of Edward Saïd (Out of Place, 1999).

This exhibition gathers several works that deal with the notion of the local, belonging, historical site, tradition, and even the Carta Foresta. Their reflections inspire us to situate historical moments into specific places in moments of different magnitudes: a family of metal smiths and the dwindling value of their craft in Madrid at the turn of the XXIst century, the declaration of the enclosure act that ended the use of the commons and precipitated capitalism in 1773 England, the Bogotazo and the period known as La Violencia that followed it in the '50s in Colombia, the several re-significations of the square of Kinaxixi in Luanda throughout colonialism, liberation, change of regime and eventually de-colonialism, and finally vocalising as a way for storytelling rooted into ancestry.

Press release courtesy Sabrina Amrani.