I am interested in exploring the mechanics at work in the shaping of identity. By identity I mean the “how we make sense of who we are” and “what we are here for”, how we construct our self-image - and so our modes of behaviour.

Travelling is a factor in my working process, by which I look for or meet contemporary landscapes and symbols of our times.

With my work I express how I think and experience the modern identity crisis, one of the main characteristics of present-day life.

I reassemble recognisable materials, taking from what is general, so to explore that the bits, when correctly put together, represent us.

I draw inspiration from the promising beauty found in decay, in what is neglected. I produce encounters that, as with people’s, harvest new meanings and a zest for shared futures, because what is ‘alive’ is that which once survived destruction, underwent the changes, the rebirths needed to shape who we are.

History is made of the stubbornness of ruins to remain, to show what they were before, to tell a story displaying undergone stages; this chronic telling is what we call universal memory.

Things always speak for themselves producing attractions and repulsions, they don’t just act as individual components, rather, its their combination, their setting, what gives them meaning. Only interrelationships come to shape landscapes and the same goes for us.

The idea is that our surrounding, with its constant combination of words and images, mirrors that of our components of self.

I aim to reproduce the shaping of identity in the way I work, thinking of our inner self as a landscape, expanding the notion of a landscape away from just the natural into an idea of our total environment, so to imply that the out-there is not fixed, that it is constantly changing, as much as we are.

I research this in the making of text, photography, interactive installation and collage.

I inform my work by my studies in Philosophy, taking concepts mainly from the Frankfurt School and from Structuralist and Poststructuralist thinkers.

I will now write more about what I have being working on for the last couple of years, a series of mixed media collages I call ‘Lyric Landscapes’.
In these pieces I play with the interaction of materials so to build poetic narratives, lyrical, because they emphasise on the expression of thoughts and sentiments.
I compose these collages on photographic paper, which is buried and exposed to London’s weather to intensify a rich and casual emergence of textures.

Some of the materials I use found me as much as I found them, my work being the one of collector and composer, playing on the idea that choice and chance structure art and nature.
Weathering, layering, painting, writing, I use physical processes to also portray psychological ones, such as the pass of time.

I choose cuttings, images and objects which carry symbolic value so to shape a social interventionism, a present reality imperative, to give the work a dimension of social and personal reference.
I take pleasure from the mixing of materials, making each composition a play and display of inner relations. I explore the mechanics of assemblage with the intention of developing an aesthetics of this interplay.

My compositions are read through navigation, by acknowledging where components come from and what they say within their new juxtapositions. Thus, the interpretation, or the reading process, becomes story telling.

I work on a small scale because I want viewers to approach the work physically. I want to share the personal, intimate relation I experienced when producing the works, by building landscapes that are to be looked at closely and by one person at a time.

Silvia Cristo. Born in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Currently lives and works in London.

Solo Exhibitions

2008
4th February to 4th March. BiddleBross Space. London:
‘On Lyric Landscapes’ Exhibiting a series of 14 mixed media prints.

2nd January to 10th January. Noid Gallery. London:
‘I don’t mind if you forget me’ Exhibiting a series of 17 mixed media prints and collage.

2007
7th April 20 to 5th May. Galleria El Local. Barcelona:
‘Mientras dormias se hizo historia’ Interactive installation and video projection on the theme of the lover’s discourse. Consisted of a cubical room were classical Spanish love poems had being written on the four walls floor and ceiling. Inside I undertook live interviews with participants and those were projected a posteriori on a wall outside the cube.

2006
5th March to 7th April. 110 Gallery. London:
‘Out of Actions’ Photography, text and collage exhibition.

Group Exhibitions

2007
7th November, one night only. Chavolem Barcelona Festival, Passeig Pablo Picasso, Barcelona.
‘Squatters’ Outdoors projection onto a partly demolished building of a 7 minutes video on the theme of urban squatters.

17th September to 19th September. Spai Alliberat.Teatre Arnau. Barcelona.
‘London Cuts’ video projection of 3 viedeo pieces on a loop.

2006
19th may one day only. Found in Space.Tudor Road Studios, London.
‘No id no sale’ interactive installation consisting of an info point were participants were given a designed id card.

2004
10th of June to 23rd of June. Fuse. Random Artists. London
‘on how the producer became the product’ Video projection of a four minutes piece on a loop.

3rd April to 3rd March. 110 Gallery. London
‘Hackneyed’ series of six collage pieces base on my own photographs and using press cuttings on the theme of meaning production.

2003
10th to 24th November. Found In Space. Tudor Rd Studios. London ‘Democrazy: War is Fun’ series of 3 collages on the theme of war propaganda.

2nd to 23rd of September.Tudor Road Studios. London
‘Drift’ interactive word installation in which participants wrote poems while walking through a room where words had being written on the four wall floor and ceiling.

4th May to 14th May. Shoreditch Salon. Ravenscroft St.
‘Anarchy on Baghdad streets, Tank You’ collage and objects installation.

17 February to 23rd. City Radio Cars. London
‘artist unknown’ photo exhibition on the theme of urban detailing.

2002
10th to 23rd November. City Radio Cars. London.
‘Juan Basura siempre llebaba los mismos zapatos rotos’ visual poetry installation of objects and words.