ARIAMNA CONTINO: THE FOREST IS DISORDER, ABUNDANCE AND CONFUSION
Cuban-born artist Ariamna Contino presents the exhibition Manigua at El Apartamento, in Spain to revisit the concept of “manigua”, a term historically used to refer to a tropical forest ecosystem.
In her first solo show in Madrid, Ariamna Contino revisits the concept of “manigua,” whose etymological origins can be traced back to the Indigenous Taino language. Historically, this term has been used in Cuba to refer to a tropical forest ecosystem specific to the Caribbean. The primitive meaning of the word is “disorder; abundance of something; confusion.”
The artist presents an exhibition in the form of an extended essay in which she combines common knowledge, historical documents, traditional medicine, aesthetic reflections, and a vibrant process of interdisciplinary work. Her creative corpus finds installations, drawings, site-specifics, and oeuvres made on hand-cut paper. In its cultural sense, the exhibition focuses on the rite, identity, and myth. Contino is interested in drawing attention to resistance exercises within popular culture as a space for safeguarding the collective imagination and the political potential of unregulated knowledge.
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Ariamna Contino. Enredadera. From the series Manigua 2024. Hand-cut paper, Fabriano Watercolor Cold Press cardboard 300 gsm, 160 x 160 x 8cm.
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Ariamna Contino. Violeta y Vicaria. From the series Manigua 2024. Hand-cut paper, Fabriano Watercolor Cold Press cardboard 300 gsm, 80 x 80 x 8cm.
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Ariamna Contino. Manzanilla y Romerillo. From the series Manigua 2024. Hand-cut paper, Fabriano Watercolor Cold Press cardboard 300 gsm, 80 x 80 x 8cm.
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Ariamna Contino. Sauco blanco. From the series Manigua 2024. Hand-cut paper, Fabriano Watercolor Cold Press cardboard 300 gsm, 80 x 80 x 8cm.
Ariamna Contino's work is based on the ritualistic and extremely meticulous technique of “openwork paper”. Her procedure, whose origin can be found in the tradition of engraving, contrasts with the themes she deals with: they are related to controversial and paradigmatic phenomena that can be found in the dense plot of the socio-political reality of the contemporary world. She is seduced to investigate conflicts and issues that are tangential to the narratives currently defended by contemporary states within their self-conceptualizations. From the analysis of statistics and data of all kinds, he develops demanding investigations that he generally approaches from a transdisciplinary perspective: chemistry, quantum physics, anthropology, sociology, materials technology, biology, history, geopolitics, art history, linguistics, among other fields of encyclopedic knowledge. In her imaginary one can identify as core themes the “narco-aesthetics”, the illegal trafficking of substances, goods and people, the underwater economies of Latin America, the trade of classified information, among others. Recently, she has approached interstitial zones between the natural world and contemporary culture. From there she ventures into sharp approaches to national identity.
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