other PROJECTS

ARCHIVE  (2015-2018)

of PREVIOUS PROJECTS​

​PROJECTS

WORKSHOPS

  • Fanzine making workshops

  • Sea, Lagoon, River: Delta system community Workshops

  • ​COMPOSTING ZINES

PUBLICATIONS

self-published fanzines and published texts

BIO

One Hundred Futures: Maps of a crosscultural world
The strategy of interviewing (acquiring knowledge) and posting posters in public spaces (rendering this knowledge into an artistic expression and leaving it in public display) is based in the work I initiated with Yana Drumeva during an AiR program in Bulgaria. What we do is incorporate opinions about visions of the future for modern human settlements into an artistic research process, through conversations and active participation of a community in a workshop. We end up posting the ideas we obtain from the participating community through posters/collages, including phrases that express a wish or blessing of well being.

We reflect on the idea of “stop decadence” in a cultural sense, understood as the inability or impossibility of promoting changes that people recognize as progress or evolution. (Decadent things get old and die.... and it seems that having a sense of progression or evolution in life originates mental contentedness or satisfaction. ) 

In our initial discussions about how to develop the project, me and Yana concluded with positive visions, where the world will develop into a general direction or desire of improvement through solutions based on utopic human natural needs of environmental protection, and social networks in the framework of a community.

Since we think these initial responses tended to be utopic because of how we used the phrase "vision of the future" in our self-questioning, we then asked about the future of our specific communities, and found the answers turned to be more realistic and negative. 
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We based our questions in "stop decadence" and its possible criticisms (Why stopping decadence if preserving also causes satisfaction? How does a world in constant search for progress and change, affects positively and negatively our present?) Our interview has 3 aspects: utopic and realistic visions of the future of the community you identify with, specific wishes of preservation and change, and finally we ask people to draw a simple representation of our conversation. We then worked on felt pieces, using the information obtained from the interviews.
Stars and crosscultural togetherness
with Yana Drumeva (Bulgaria)
Star Maps
hand made felt (wool Bergschaf), paper, 20 X 30 cm.

The first collaboration by Yana  and Paloma, explores the possibilities of connecting to the community through magical and astronomical references. Their collages express the belief of wishing as a magical spell-like blessing from the artist to the people of their present host town Gorna Lipnitsa, during their stay as artists in The Old School Residence program.
Mexican maps and traditional bulgarian textile materials were used to build imaginary maps that present their connection to each other, and to the culture of Gorna Lipnitsa. Some of the children from the town helped the artists and learned how to make felt. This created a strong connection between the old tecnics and the new generations.
Ten spots were chosen around the town center, that are connected in the form of the Orion constellation. The constellation is projected on the town itself as a reflections of the stars above, and trying to bring them to the people.

Each of the parts express a wish of well being for the town residents.