THE ETERNAL PRESENT
LA BALSA ARTE, Medellín, 2025
The overproduction of images and the bombardment of news we experience today can reach such immensity that, amidst fires, political radicalism, accidents, and wars, it's impossible not to feel a sense of catastrophe. However, Dora Mejía, always attentive to the news and with a vast archive of internet images, reminds us that the end of the world has always been in the present, as if it were part of human nature to exist in discomfort.
For ‘The Eternal Present,’ the artist unites the chronological past with the latest moment, revealing the repetition of past events that could be interpreted, and of others that, having just occurred, seem like the same story told a thousand times.
Her interpretation stems from a fascination with an image or an idea, employing techniques such as laser bas-relief, digital collage, and video, bringing the subtext to the surface through associations between seemingly unrelated images, or palimpsests, thus creating a sensitive renewal of the document. In her 45-year exhibition career, Dora Mejía has distinguished herself through her curiosity about new technologies, installation formats, and interventions in public spaces, starting with drawing and video. She constantly incorporates new approaches based on digital fabrication and audiovisual resources.
Landscape has been a common thread in Dora Mejía's practice. However, she has not focused on the idyllic, distant view of a forest or a city, but rather on a critique of the relationship with urban spaces, the cosmos, world politics, and cartographies. In a way, it is a social perspective on landscape.
Hacer Click sobre la imagen.
The works in this exhibition are her most recent; they also place us within the realm of immensity, history, and the universe, where there is such a difference in scale compared to the dimensions and temporality of a human individual that they lead us to question whether infinity is merely a measure of what we cannot grasp.
Andrea Domínguez Ramírez. BALSA ART coordinator, Medellín , 2025