Mercosur Price for Visual Arts 2016
Nélida Mendoza is the winner for Paraguay of the MERCOSUR Prize for Visual Arts. Her work, "Hanging Landscapes" was selected by a prestigious international jury and she is now getting ready to participate in a four-week artistic residency at the Contemporary Arts Space (EAC – Espacio Arte Contemporanea), in Montevideo, Uruguay.
This residence has the support of the National Secretariat of Culture and the sponsorship of Pilar Manufactures of Paraguay.
The other winners are Pia Capisano from Argentina; Maíra Ishida from Brazil; José Hidalgo from Ecuador; Fernando Foglino from Uruguay; Natalia Rondón from Venezuela.
The jury responsible for selecting the works was made up of Jorge Tirner from Argentina, Jorge Luiz from Brazil, Romina Muñoz from Ecuador, Ticio Escobar from Paraguay and Fernando Sicco from Uruguay.
The project of public art presented for the award is part of a research based project, structured in various stages.
It was devised by Nélida Mendoza, together with the curator and art critic Costanza Meli.
Regarding it, Mendoza said that "it takes place in Latin America and Europe, as a reflection on the dialogue between sculpture and landscape."
The project "Hanging Landscapes" as C. Meli write, is defined as public and relational art.
“The trajectory is personal experience and the very place of identity. A line that crosses landscapes, collecting, each time, new fragments. Thus, these shapes represent the relationship between the depth of the footprint and the precariousness of the movement ”. “The objective of this residence is to share memories of landscapes already traveled, in a search for identity, between the country of origin, Paraguay, and the experiences and visions of landscapes that the neighbors (in particular, the project is dedicated to the women of the neighborhood) they will want to share and donate through the small piece of cloth, which will make up the final work ”.
The next exhibition stage of this research will be the artist's personal exhibition name "Briznas" curated by Costanza Melli, at the CAV Museo del Barro of Asunción, which is scheduled for next August. On this occasion, some works - fruit of the same research - and part of the work done for the award will be presented.