JIMENA KATO PE|SP

CAMPO AIR October resident
@jimena_kato_works

Jimena studied painting, academic drawing, and photography in Lima before heading to Europe, where she began her training at the Superior School of Art and Design in Marseille, Mediterránea (ESADMM), obtaining the Higher National Diploma in Plastic Expression (DNSEP) in sculpture and video. Later in Belgium, she completed a Post-Diploma at Hogeschool Sint Lukas in Brussels in Art and New Media. She currently lives and works between Madrid, Lima, and Tarapoto. Recently, she has been a beneficiary of the Bilbao Art Foundation Grants, participated in the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, as well as the Ranchito Residency Program at Matadero in Madrid, Artist x Artist in Havana, and CAMPO in Uruguay. She also received the Acquisition Award in Recognition of Creation from Nebrija University in 2018, and Grants for Creation from the Community of Madrid and Ca2m.

FROM ASHES TO TRACES

Arriving at a place for a defined period, discovering the landscape, its rhythm. How to connect with the place as genuinely as possible. Delving hands and feet into the earth to feel its moisture, its heartbeat. ‘Will there be clay in Garzón?’ I wondered. From Ashes to Traces is a piece created using the ‘taloneada’ technique, employed by native communities in the Peruvian region of San Martin who work with clay. This clay is extracted from specific deposits, preceded by an offering to Pachamama with the ashes of the mapacho. Then it is mixed with ‘shañu’ (ceramic powder), serving as a drying and stabilizing material in a process that requires several hours of stomping with the feet. For this occasion, I blended the clay extracted in Garzón with beach sand from La Paloma. My work always encompasses the performative possibilities of sculpture as a connector to the surrounding context, the trace left by a body in contact with matter. In that sense, the piece serves as a sort of vestige, a witness to our passage through Garzón, simultaneously containing the imprints in a kind of choreographic ritual that connects me with the elements.