Ana García Jácome, 'It’s Like She Had Never Existed', video still, 2018

Ana García Jácome, 'It’s Like She Had Never Existed', video still, 2018

Ana García Jácome
Histories of disability:
archive and absence

Part of Acts of Observation

Exhibitions

25 Sep 2021 — 2 Jan 2022  

 

Acts of Observation was a group show by artists and writers Ana García Jácome, Jeda Pearl, Abi Palmer and Simon Yuill. The exhibition spanned our entire site and was presented as a series of solo presentations, or ‘acts’, throughout our different buildings, spaces, and online.

Dynamic in form and content, the artists brought together present a diverse range of works including film, interactive installation, writing and architectural interventions. Acts of Observation directly questioned, contextualised and challenged how we negotiate institutional language and spaces, and how disability is represented. The participating artists articulated and politicised notions of recovery and offer visions of positive, inclusive futures.

Ana García Jácome works across various media to address the social construction of disability. Expanding disability discourse beyond the dominant West and North American contexts, she pushes us to question the conditions that construct these hierarchies of knowledge.

It’s Like She Had Never Existed depicts Coquis, Ana’s aunt who died the year she was born. Using archival imagery, animation, drawing and voiceover, Ana explores how the story of disability is constructed within her own family. Through Ana’s exploration of her aunt’s erasure, she asks; when does sickness becomes disability? Why does it seem like she never existed? What is it that everyone wants to erase? and why? You can watch the film online here.

In The [ ] History of Disability in Mexico, the artist follows differing conceptions and representations of disability spanning the 1940s up until the present day. You can watch the film online here. These issues are explored further in Ana’s drawings, which invite us to consider the marginalisation of disabled people in their navigation of life.

Content Warning: It’s Like She Had Never Existed depicts a historical view of disability in Mexico that some viewers may find challenging.

Ana García Jácome (b. Mérida, Yucatán) works with different media such as drawing, writing, video, and archives to address the social construction of disability and explore ways to rearticulate its narratives.


Related

Simon Yuill
Jeda Pearl
Abi Palmer