Gisela Torres, who graduated from the Photography Arts MA course in 2020, has been selected as one of the winners of the Peckham 24 Photography Festival’s Open Call competition.
Peckham 24’s three-day festival is returning to Copeland Park and Bussey Building from Friday 13 to Sunday 15 May 2022. The festival presents an eclectic programme of exhibitions and events to mark Photo London Week, with a mission to highlight emerging young and experimental artists who are working with contemporary photography.
For 2022, the festival has been set up around the theme of ‘FACT FICTION FANTASY’. The artistic programme will explore photography’s relationship to truth, investigation and imagination through the work of selected artists who are blurring the lines between real, fictional and fantastical.
Gisela Torres was one of two photographers selected from a record number of entries for the annual Peckham 24 Open Call, who will be joining the programme of exhibiting artists at Copeland Gallery. In her photographic practice, Gisela is drawn to themes of under-represented histories, body politics and mourning. She weaves multi-layered narratives of personal and historic relevance to explore place, identity and loss in her work.
At the Festival, she will present her installation ‘Looking for Edmonia (Self Portrait)’, an uncanny dialogue with the 19th century American neo-classicist sculptress, Mary Edmonia Lewis – the first woman of afro and native American heritage to receive recognition in the fine arts world. As a mixed-race American artist of Cuban heritage, Torres has found her muse in Lewis. Her multifaceted self-portraits engage with historical and emerging artistic media to build narratives via materiality and processes.
Three photo polymer prints, a selection from the series Conjure will be included as part of the installation at the Festival. These unique prints were made possible due to The 125 Fund at Westminster, which is an innovative opportunity fund to support projects and activities that supports students’ employability, develops their skills and helps them achieve their full potential.
Gisela will also be inaugurating the festival weekend events programme with a conversation with Bindi Vori, a Photographic Artist and Curator who is also a graduate of the University of Westminster.
The free weekend festival launched in 2016 and is returning this year for its sixth edition. Since its inception, it has been firmly established as a must-see part of the annual programme of events that celebrate photography city-wide during Photo London fair at Somerset House.
Talking about being selected to take part in the festival, Gisela said: “I am thrilled to be a joint winner of the Peckham 24 Open Call for 2022 and to be exhibiting in the company of such diverse and talented artists.”
Find out more about Art, Design and Visual Culture courses at the University of Westminster.
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