11th grade Campestre's Final Showcase Catalogue

FINE ARTS PROGRAM
A BRIEF HISTORY
Alejandro Sánchez Gallardo

In August 2014 Fine Arts was officially presented to the entire high school community as a sophisticated program that, for the first time was integrating three strong and attractive disciplines for 9th, 10th and 11th graders: Music Production, Moving Image and Visual Arts – all innovative courses within Campestre’s curriculum, which implied a new perspective, a contemporary stand towards Art Education. Until June in that same year, Music and Art were mandatory and somehow conservative and rigid within their structure. Students where never asked if they wanted to take those classes and there was no clear link or association between them. They were just part of their syllabus, a controlled and linear one. However, everything changed drastically.

Two months later high school students were encouraged to project their learning process with a different scenario, focusing on experimentation practices, creative thinking and problem-solving strategies within artistic contexts. A training cycle was offered then in 9th grade, where every single boy had the chance to experiment with music production software, recording techniques and musical instrument appropriation. Film theory, cinematography foundations, filming and editing techniques were also part of this scheme. And finally, new ways of understanding artistic practices with a contemporary approach within sculpture, photography, painting, drawing and installation. A training cycle aimed for preparing students for a coherent research process – a emphasis structure – that later had to take place during the last two years in their academic school life. This meant 10th graders were able to choose one area among those three, in order to begin a focused research process using a specialized language, going beyond what Art Education was asking around the time. For the first time in Campestre’s history, students had the chance to choose their creative path by enrolling in classes taught by experts in their own fields. This program started recruiting talented professionals who are responsible for today’s success and accomplishments.

[ Prologue pictures by:
Alejandro Sanchez Gallardo
of the series ONE FINE DAY]

A year later, in 2015, the Program had to grow and was extended down to 8th grade. The foundations and experimentation cycle turned into a robust and advanced cycle, that allowed students to explore different languages in a 2-year process (8th and 9th grade) before choosing a final emphasis. This gave the entire program a different perspective and forced to delimit common goals despite the differences among disciplines and project formal circulation strategies in order to integrate formal productions within the three areas. Until last year, those circulation strategies took an exhibition form in order to transcend the class context due to the relevant findings specially within the Visual Arts emphasis.

Then in June 2017, the first group graduated after completing the entire process within the 3-year program. One year later in June 2018, we graduated the first class to complete what by then was a 4-year program. Today this program is about to end its sixth year. But this time with a mature and talented group of artists, whose creative process is clearly not distant from what professional artists have to face in their training years. This group of students, Class of 2020, are gathered here in this catalogue type, due to their complex way of looking at the world, their pertinent inquiries regarding identity, memory, fiction, political and social issues, visual endeavor, etc.; and of course, due to the way they are translating their thoughts in compelling and pertinent visual devices. We celebrate our sixth year with a meticulously curated group of artworks made by their tutor and mentor Alejandra Díaz.

Unfortunately, we cannot meet inside the school’s gallery space. The pandemic forced us to move to different platforms and alternative exhibition strategies. But it never stopped this group of young artists and their mentor from building intelligible discourses and powerful messages. On the contrary, this will be the first class to be exhibited in a digital environment, which makes it even more complex and surprising.

Do not hesitate to go through this catalogue. Every page is the evidence of an intriguing and potent learning journey.

Alejandro Sánchez Gallardo
Head of Arts Deparment

[ Prologue pictures by:
Alejandro Sanchez Gallardo
of the series ONE FINE DAY]

A PEEK THROUGH THE CRACKS
Alejandra Díaz Rodríguez

It’s all about the process not the final result; a sentence so used in pedagogical processes, which I personally trust and believe on, especially when referring to artistic education and creative processes in general. We want to play the game, we want to live the moment, we want to explore and experiment and create regardless of the results we may or may not obtain. We like to believe we are here to simply to walk the path, and ideally we will enjoy it, and only as a consequent result we will make magnificent creations that will make us proud of ourselves; nevertheless, to be honest, in reality we are embedded in a world which is eager for results, we measure each other with competences, skills and abilities, and we are so into this world and this reality that we are eager too for those results, impatient to create and make those processes, thoughts, reflections come to life.

Art itself, provides us nowadays with millions of possibilities and medias for creation, and we try and try to find our own language in this ocean of possibilities, we get frustrated with those, and ourselves, on the way, break down, leave behind, and even bravely put the pieces together and start again if needed. This has been a 2 year journey which was embraced by 25 individuals and their unique worlds (24 students and myself as a tutor more than as a teacher) and this catalogue and virtual gallery mark the end of our journey together, in which all of the above: the eagerness for creation, the confusion, the abandonment, the frustration, the break downs and the bravery was present and is now finished by 23. Our path has not been even or easy, the challenges have marked the pace, and the expectations regarding the results have not changed even when the conditions have, time has not been our ally, and even when we thought we could make it happen, we were forced to be separated physically and therefore to reinvent ourselves once more. But, here we are, we could figure it out, we did not present an empty space of what could have been but did not happen, we did not gave up and find a solution together.

“…In looking back we just peek through the cracks between what's real and false…”
-Dianne Reeves- Reflections-

A peek through the cracks is what you will experiment, these cracks that were left behind throughout this process, which now allow us to peek and get a glimpse of 22 different and personal processes, 22 unique individuals and their worlds, their reflections, their needs and findings through art; from the immediate realities that surround them all the way to their deepest inner struggles. On this final showcase you will find formal and conceptual reflections in which if you are lucky enough you will reflect yourself, the reality around you, and maybe even discover your own cracks.

ARTISTS:
ALEJANDRO ABONDANO
PABLO ALFONSO
EMILIO ARRUBLA
SANTIAGO AVELLA
MATEO AVILÉS
JUAN PABLO BAQUERO
SANTIAGO BOTERO
JUAN CAMILO CORTÉS
MARTÍN FONNEGRA
DANIEL GALINDO
EDDY HERGETT
JUAN HOYOS
SIMÓN JARAMILLO
ALEJANDRO LEÓN
SAMUEL OLARTE
FELIPE SIERRA
JOSE MARIA SILVA
FELIPE TORRES
JUAN MANUEL TRUJILLO
MARTÍN VARELA
PABLO VARGAS
WERNER ZITZMANN

[Pictures by: Alejandro Sanchez Gallardo
of the series ONE FINE DAY]

ALEJANDRO ABONDANO

This work is a clear sample of what we have in the city, where the disordered extreme that is in every aspect that we see in the day to day is shown from the micro to the macro. This design starts from a simple house with a poor and mediocre aesthetic, which seems as if it were the typical Bogota house, the one that characterises each set or neighbourhood in the city, apparently taking into account the classes. This is where the macro enters, little by little, in the work, because from a starting point in the house, with a short change from image to image, in the end we end up reaching a social disorder, seeing the poverty, inequality and inequality that hay. Now, this is what I want to convey with my work, where I seek to open the eyes of each viewer who wants to see it, demonstrating that many of the things that it sees every day are due to these failures in the economic structure and Social. In this way, I seek through my work to impact and create reflection in all people who see it, so that they become aware of what is happening. This is why, from the beginning, I am trying from the infrastructure and structures of the country, to show the city from a version without sight, or at least not analysed, arriving at a concept of city, society and structure.

Regarding the development of the work, the techniques used were based on typologies and one on a technique found on Pinterest called I´m Google, both of photography, but with a different process and different operations. The first technique had as a reference to Hilla and Bernd, where a pattern of images is made, looking for the complete similarity of the same, where the angle, the color, the background, almost everything has to be the same; Likewise, they use structures as a central theme, so from all points of view it was a very useful reference to carry out the project. On the other hand, I’m google is a technique where there is a pattern of images searched in the search engine, and what these do is from the number of photos collected, changing the thematic center of the initial theme.In this way, the two techniques were joined, starting from a typology, we arrived at an I´m google, where after showing an initial structure it is tried to change the central theme so that in the end it is seen on a larger scale and more evident. These techniques helped me develop my theme, since it allows me a starting point and a change later, always having a pattern without departing from the main theme, where being a photograph I can more explicitly and directly show the poverty that I seek to transmit. On the other hand, the chosen topics were carried out for a very personal interest, where I feel empathy for those most in need by common acquaintances who have suffered it, and I think that Colombia is highly criticised when nobody does their part to fix it .

Now, the exhibition occurs in two ways, the first will be a QR code, which everyone will have access to directly enter a VSCO page (photography application) where the complete project is exposed. On the other hand, the project will be on a television during the exhibition, in which the same page of the QR code will be open, where it will be seen online live and direct what the project is, which will be able to give explanations. This type of exhibition will help me show everyone who wants to access the project, without any limit or condition, so in the end what this way of showing achieves is to go viral, to create a trend and a bigger reflection and in more people. In this way, the strategy that helped me the most was to show very explicit poverty to impact and connect the viewer with the work. This is why without much more to say I hope you enjoy the work.

PABLO ALFONSO

Taking a page from early 2000’s teenage cinema, I take the diary concept and mean girls’ iconic burn book to reimagine the shallowness of it into a profound look into my emotions. It hopes to convey a feeling of intimacy and truthfulness between my book and your emotions, it preys on this deep sense of vulnerability combined with a sarcastic and self-deprecating coping mechanism. Vulnerability is a state of mind and/or being in which he/she who portrays it is open to be attacked or harmed, in this case, my emotional state of being. Accompanied with supposedly random and often self-conceited imagery there’s a clear portrayal of the human condition, my human condition.

There are multiple underlying motifs throughout the piece, from self-loathing to self-acceptance, narcissism to vulnerability, and so forth. It attempts to parallel the depth of an emotional and feeling with a contrastingly mean and satirical commentary on my self. Throughout the poetic input there’s an exploration into my emotions and intimate thought whilst creating a link into real life cynicism with the insultingly comical journal entries. It relies mainly on the usage of photography, specifically fake polaroids, and the way it complements the romanticised poetic invoice. The fake polaroid aims to convey the paradigm between manufactured beauty and raw pieces of time, it’s shallow in the sense that it isn’t instant nor raw but attempts to be, as if there were a standard to fit. This criticism on manufactured depth is further explored by the journal entries as I mock my own attempt at a deep emotional portrayal, this constant mockery and scrutiny of myself in a comedic ways portrays a coping mechanism of my own (and i’m sure of many others) when dealing with complicated emotions.