LIBIA CASTRO

Libia Castro, from Spain, and Ólafur Òlafsson, from Iceland, have been working together since 1997. Much of their work forms a corpus of ongoing research into the ways life, society and the personal are influenced and constructed by socio-economic and political factors, amongst others. They are particularly drawn to the new global phenomenon of transculturalism, and the mobility that enables. After spending 12 years in the Netherlands, they are dividing their time between Rotterdam and Berlin. Working across national and gender boundaries, much of their art comes out of this multiple or “moving perspective”. Though they have previously explored performative art and installations, they have recently focused on video as one of their main instrument. They prefer not to remain a passive observer of the dynamics that interest them, but have developed an “immersive” approach, engaging in conversation with the subjects of their work both through dialogue and through participation-based action. They combine disparate elements, including different genres of text, and styles of musical and spoken performance. When combined, these distinct and sometimes conflicting approaches transform each other and open up new readings of themselves, becoming partly something else through their interaction. Identifying the many questions that the present raises and always careful to avoid simplistic answers, their works demand active engagement on the part of the viewer.