Mending the Cracks: Geographies of Repair - by Lucía Rojas and dssPw
Curated by Alexandra Gelis
2024

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By Lucía Rojas and dssPow

Mending the Cracks: Geographies of Repair was a collaborative exhibition with dssPower / Brown Dolly at Arcadia Art Gallery in 2024, curated by Alexandra Gelis. Built through sixteen mixed-media works on reused materials, the video and sound installation Moving is a Kind of Stillness, and a series of live performances, the work moved through geography, migration, memory, friction and repair.

Rather than imagining repair as making something whole again, the exhibition stayed with the crack as a place where histories, bodies, places and relationships meet, rub against one another, and sometimes begin to change.

Artist Statement

Mending the Cracks: Geographies of Repair is a deeply personal art exhibition that reflects the repair, growth, connection, and disconnection woven throughout our seven-year relationship. We are partners in both life and art and creating together has been essential to how we understand each other, navigate challenges, and stay connected.

From the beginning, art-making has been a vital thread in our shared life. We naturally find ourselves painting, collaging, filming videos, snapping photos, or playing with electronic sounds and words. There’s no set plan to what we create; it’s a spontaneous, collaborative process that feels like home. Even when we experience ruptures and conflict, this creative space becomes a refuge, allowing us to express ourselves freely and find grounding together.

The mixed media paintings in this collection came from materials we had on hand: cardboard boxes, wrapping paper, old textiles, canvas, glue, paint, ink, and found objects. Each piece started impulsively, using whatever felt right in the moment. We created canvases out of any materials, layered and assembled elements without a plan, in spontaneous bursts, often returning later to add new details or revisit earlier ideas. This way of working mirrors the rhythms of our relationship and the desire to make things together that comes from deep within.

Moving is a kind of Stillness, a video installation that is part of a larger body of video and sound work, is a map of some of the roads we’ve traveled together combined with audio recordings from other moments taken as snapshots during these journeys. A series of 5 one-take videos and 5 audio snapshots that depicts moments of repositioning where we often reconnect, re-shift the way we take in the world and our shared experiences. For us, moving becomes a kind of stillness. In motion, we find moments of contemplation and creativity.

Sound is also a fundamental part of our creative practice. On the opening and closing nights, we’ll perform together, sharing improvised sound pieces to invite others into the kind of sound space we enjoy creating at home. We build these pieces through playful experiments with electronic generators, processors, small instruments, microphones, and spoken words. Welcome to our living room!

Art-making has always been a space where we can hold the complexities of our relationship, keeping love intact even in difficult times. It’s a kind of buffer that holds us together when things feel like they might fall apart. This process is one of the best parts of our relationship, a way for us to survive and thrive. It helps us maintain balance in our shared life, giving us a way to dream, build, and rebuild. For us, creating is not about the final outcome but about the process itself. It’s a sacred space of negotiation, allowing us to reimagine ourselves as we layer our imperfections, cracks, ruptures, and repairs.

Mending the Cracks: Geographies of Repair reflects our belief that the imperfections in relationships aren’t failures but openings for growth and transformation. We honor the cracks in life, celebrating the beauty of imperfection and the healing power of repair.

Lucia & dssPow

Detail Images

The crack is not the end of the surface; it is where another geography begins.

( Selected Projects ) (Brown Dolly Performances/Audio)