Gijón Photographic Encounters
‘Universo’ by Yin Búnker & ‘Mar: Silencios y Enigmas’ by José Carlos Ñíguez
Image: Universo, by Yin Búnker
The Encuentros Fotográficos de Gijón is an annual and close meeting point for those who belong to the world of photography. Since 2004 its intention has always been to create a place of dissemination and exchange between culture and photography.
LABoral Centro de Arte presents two exhibitions by the artists Yin Bunker and José Carlos Ñíguez:
UniVERSO by Yin Búnker
I started photographing at eight o'clock in the evening. That was the ephemeral moment when the sun entered through the window and went through a translucent glass that left a diffuse light ideal for my purpose. On my walks in the bush I collected leaves and plants that served as stars for my particular UniVERSO.
2021, since 1957, after the start of the space race, 900,000 objects between 1 and 10 cm and some 34,000 larger than 10 cm have been moving at more than 28,000 km/h, making them real projectiles. Organisations such as the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs have long been warning of the serious problem of space debris, satellites, rockets, lost tools, screws, cables, cameras, etc. The greatest risks come from the smallest fragments, the micrometeorites that can damage the solar panels of active satellites. The biggest challenge is not to produce more space debris and there are now guidelines for a sustainable use of space. Design spacecraft and rockets to minimise the amount of material released during launch, avoid explosions, move defunct missions away from the orbit of operational satellites or prevent collisions. We must consider the space environment as a limited and shared natural resource. The continued generation of space debris will eventually lead to a Kessler syndrome, when the density of objects in low-Earth orbit becomes high enough that collisions between objects and debris create a cascade effect where each impact generates new debris, which in turn increases the probability of further collisions. At this point, certain orbits around the Earth would become completely inhospitable. Humans are on the verge of wiping out the planet Earth and space, it seems.
SEA, SILENCES AND ENIGMAS by José Cárlos Ñíguez
The sea has fascinated and attracted human beings for as long as we can remember. Its mystery traps us in an infinity of unanswered questions. Emotions such as: infinity, serenity, eternal change, accompany our thoughts when we contemplate it. At the same time, its hypnotic power exerts a special connection with our nervous system that immerses us in a deep silence full of soundless sounds, which bring us closer to the subconscious, bringing out a flood of feelings; that magical place where silence itself is the one that speaks to us, revealing its mysteries, opening us to another reality to the hidden.
The absence of sound is silence; but it is not a void of communication, it communicates something that cannot be said with words: it is the creator of an enigmatic reality, a symbol of the ineffable and the inexpressible. Everything that exists are partial aspects of him and is generated in what does not exist, in what does not appear. It is a look open to metaphor, full of contrasts and symbolism.
SEA: SILENCES AND ENIGMAS, is an exhibition that proposes to the spectator on the one hand a reflection on the infinite or the relationship of antagonistic concepts such as: space/time, emptiness/plenitude, imagination/reality, light/darkness, presence/absence, harmony/chaos or the immaterial and, on the other hand, a journey in search of the dream worlds and enigmas hidden in the eternal sea: a lyrical atlas of intimate territories lost in the nebula of time and memory. They are minimalist, meditative spaces, where not all the elements are recognisable, where we have never been, mysterious and disturbing, where the concrete coexists with the abstract, suggesting an invisible realm of the mind; a plastic representation of our most intimate self.
For these purposes I resort to the more emotional, literary and abstract visual language of black and white. The lack of colour forces us to use our imagination, appealing to our most emotional part, favouring, without distractions, the search for these silences and enigmas.
