• Andrea Santolaya

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Photography: Andrea Santolaya  
27 / 11 / 2020
There is a raw often unsettling truth in the images captured by Andrea Santolaya.  
A storyteller by nature, the Spanish photographer moved to São Miguel to continue nurturing her unflagging desire to portray small communities. With an enviable portfolio - which has taken her, among many places, to the dressing rooms of Russian dancers or to an Indian tribe in the Venezuelan Amazon - it is in the Azores that she has just launched Isolado, her latest project displayed at the Fonseca Macedo gallery. One cannot remain indifferent to the passion that she feels for her work and for this island packed with "unique landscapes, stories and ruins to discover".

Has photography always been part of your life?
I would say, rather, the fine arts. My grandparents owned the SEN Gallery in Madrid at an exciting time in the 70s. There were always poets, painters, photographers, conceptual and performing arts artists at our home, not to mention a dog to support the Fellinian circus that attended the exhibitions, dinners and meetings at the family farm in Castellon during the festive seasons.

What topics do you most like to explore?
I have a keen interest in small communities that somehow live in isolation. This could be the Warao community in the Venezuelan jungle or the "Old Russian Believers" community in Alaska. I like to be integrated into the spaces and take a more anthropological approach, where I photograph the people inhabiting those places. I spent two years photographing a boxing community in New York City and ended up getting into the ring myself to grasp the psychological aspects of this sport. I moved to St. Petersburg, where I spent an entire winter developing a project on the Mikhailovsky Ballet, and shared a room with Yulia Tikka, a southern dancer's home.

What are you looking for with the practice of photography?
Photography allows me to express my interests and concerns through a direct language with the viewer: the image. It is a way of creating an open narrative and using images to tell a story. It’s an author's perception of reality through the concepts that inspire the project. Photography allows me to access those places that the viewer wouldn't have access to otherwise.
 
  • Andrea Santolaya
  • Andrea Santolaya
  • Andrea Santolaya
What can you tell us about your most recent Isolated project?
The projects developed within the artistic residencies of Pico do Refúgio, on the island of São Miguel. The idea for the series is centred on small communities, where I question their ties to the island. What happens when the ocean is the only element surrounding a population? When the nearest continent is 1,300 kilometres away? What does being isolated mean when you live on an island in the middle of the ocean? It’s through the tragic sentiment of Antero de Quental's sonnets that this project seeks to bear witness to the idea of transformation, of solitude, of the relationship between human beings and the sea and the creatures inhabiting it. The characters in this story are fishermen, tea pickers, prisoners. Is it possible to reflect on the syndrome of living on an island in the 21st century? The support and monitoring of the team led by the director Bernardo Brito e Abreu has been key to streamlining the processes. I had the chance to board a warship from Viana do Castelo, visit the lighthouses of São Miguel and visit the prison in Ponta Delgada.

Do have any projects yet to be implemented?
I would really like to discover and understand the rest of the archipelago and continue the Isolado project. For me it is essential to interact with small communities and carry on with the photography workshops as a form of social inclusion and as a subject for creation. These islands manage to impart a nostalgic dimension to my imagination that is very evident in Vitorino Nemésio's narrative.

Although your work is in black and white... What brings colour to your days?
I like walking in the countryside, working on a mountain top with the restlessness of this bucolic space when it’s sunny, but also the nostalgia when it rains. Taking photos of fishermen, going to buy bread with them. It's what brings colour to each morning as the days fly by. And actually, for the first time, I have blended two languages: my work in black and white and a new photography in colour. A very typical tone of in this landscape, with its strong ochres, chiselled blues and the soft contrasts often seen in the clouds of the Azores.
 
  • Andrea Santolaya
  • Andrea Santolaya
  • Andrea Santolaya
  • Andrea Santolaya
  • Andrea Santolaya
For more information, visit Andrea Santolaya website.
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