Ana G. Argüelles was born in Gijón in 2001, specifically in the mining district of La Camocha, which has led to her interest in questions linked to the memory and archive of places and towns like this one. She is a multidisciplinary artist who works mainly in the field of photography and video essay; she is currently researching creation in the field of textile art. Graduated in Fine Arts in 2023 from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, she made her first audiovisual work during a year of academic exchange at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria, where she developed an interest in experimental analogue video. With a marked tendency to highlight that which is forgotten, some of his previous projects can be seen in formats such as the photobook or small magazines of black and white photographic series.
The “Festina Lente” project takes a journey through memory, both individual and collective, to highlight the different communication networks in today’s societies.
The Festina Lente project is a journey through those elements that constitute and accompany us. The Latin locution ‘Festina lente’ translated as ‘hurry slowly’ or ‘the fast within the slow’ can be understood from a current perspective as an invitation to slowness. We live in a reality where we can travel at high speed and the great technological development has allowed us to conquer not only territory, but also time. This has precipitated us towards a fragmentation of life that has dynamited previously hegemonic systems, such as the family or the neighbourhood. On the other hand, we have also created complex virtual networks at the service of a global communication project. This world, these communication networks, are increasingly dominated by image and video. Starting from a video essay and putting it in dialogue with found elements, we can confront ourselves with images “that we inhabit and inhabit us”, that we continually remember and forget. This project dives into memory, both individual and collective, to find small stitches of a thread that intertwines us and that, at first glance, seems impossible to perceive.
Project selected in the II Call for Artistic Residencies 2023
