De-westernised memory is a virtual exhibition that is part of the Red de la Imagen program of Fotoseptiembre | International Photography Festival of Mexico, organized by the Centro de la Imagen. The 2024 edition focuses on the theme of archive and memory, which is why this exhibition brings into dialogue the background and the review process of the digital archive of Ferney Manrique Aragón. This archive consists of images that document his travels through America, Europe, and Asia, experimenting with various analog and digital photographic devices that together form a material memory. This is the first extensive look at the work of Ferney Manrique, featuring previously unpublished photographs whose documentary value begins to reconstruct memory, allowing new stories to be told.

Ferney Manrique Aragón is a Colombian visual artist residing in China. He holds a Master’s degree in Digital Media and Continental Philosophy and is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy, Art, and Critical Thought. Since 2007, he has been teaching graphic design and art, combining academic activity with artistic production through analog photography, moving images, and new technologies. His work constantly explores new ways to engage in dialogue with the environment and society. In addition to serving as a physical medium, his work becomes an intellectual tool that maintains a constant relationship with photography to address issues of absence, presence, the moment, temporality, and memory.

“De-westernised Memory” is a selection of photographs taken in Asia, each of which raises questions about memory, the materiality of images, history itself, architecture, and particularly the landscape. The points of dialogue between each photograph respond to abstract, pictorial, or textual values. For this reason, the viewer is invited on an intermedial journey through China, Japan, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, and Syria, where the photographs focus on nature, reveal how it converges with architecture, and demonstrate the impact of time through monumentality and ruins.

Curator: Marcela Mena Barreto

"[…] the landscape is the rhythm of waves that nature perhaps generously unfolds, where we saturate the spirit with sublime moments of beauty and energy."

Dr. Atl.

CHINA

If writing is visual, how does it translate and blend with nature?

On a walk through Wenzhou, the vertical lines and square shapes of the tall concrete towers, whose windows overlook remnants of demolition, a pile of twisted iron rods, and buildings that make it hard to tell if they are halfway constructed or fading into history, speak to us of a contemporary industrial city.

In the deserts of Xinjiang, the landscape’s lines wind and the dunes fade into the curves of rocks and mountains.

In these images, one can see the fine line between landscape, architecture, and writing, where wooden pagodas share the thin, curved, and elevated strokes of Chinese characters (sinograms), giving an expressive sense that either imitates nature or synthesizes the landscape.

The earliest references to China date back approximately 2,000 years BCE, and it is estimated that its writing system is a millennium older. Despite the destruction of numerous literary and artistic records, these photographs recall a tiny fraction of the lost history.

Ferney Manrique Aragón – Wenzhou, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón – Wenzhou, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón – Wenzhou, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Xingjian, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Xingjian, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Xingjian, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Wenzhou, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Wenzhou, China, 2022

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Wenzhou, China, 2022

“The image in that mirror shows Nature representing itself, revealing an identity between the Real and the Imaginary, which certifies the reality of our images.”

W.J.T. Mitchell

JAPAN

Do we remember in silence?

The connection between China and Japan is as ancient as their history, especially in the arts, where nature takes on even greater significance in the Japanese context, whose landscapes were painted with brushes.

During the *walk*, one can observe the region's trees: red maple, kousa, and slender cedar, accompanying the viewer as they pass through a *torii*, leaving behind the silence and the sacred, to cross into the earthly bustle. The crosswalk quickens the movement of traffic, highlighted by the silver Hishō monument and the pedestrians of Nagoya.

The high contrast and textures reproduce reality in photography and painterly qualities in the water’s reflection. A double exposure in a few photographs creates a powerful cinematic effect, where Yukio Mishima's portrait emerges on the surface of illuminated foliage.

Ferney Manrique transfers the aesthetic of the Japanese writer and screenwriter through transparencies and close-ups, transporting us into a mysterious atmosphere.

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Nagoya, Japón, 2018

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Yukio Mishima, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Geta, Japón, 2016

“The image of an empty landscape adapts to the medium of photography as it also integrates the present, despite being a historical reference.”

Thomas Struth

ABU-DHABI

Is it possible to speak of the landscape of history?

First, remove your footwear on the marble floor before entering the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the most iconic religious site of architecture in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Its origins seem to trace back to ancient times in the Persian Gulf, where the first settlements of nomadic Bedouin groups in the 16th century built shelters (arish) from palm leaves. In 1996, construction began on the architectural complex, featuring white marble domes shaped like onions, spires topped with crescent moons, Egyptian capitals adorned with golden palm trees, and pointed arches framing the central gardens.

Similarly round like moons, speakers and television antennas stand out on the roofs of the light-colored traditional homes, built from mud, clay, and bricks, with windcatchers. These are small fortresses with minimal ornamentation, designed to withstand the extreme desert climate.

In contrast, two icons of contemporary architecture: the Al Bahar Towers, which incorporate cultural and natural elements into their design—two buds with palm tree bark, and the masharabiya shading panels to reduce sunlight and heat, featuring traditional geometric lattices; and the Mussafah Bridge, built in the 1970s, one of the strategic bridges that connects Abu Dhabi to the mainland, telling the story of more recent history.

These photographs were taken using ILFORD film, whose qualities favor shots with natural light. They serve as a material metaphor for the fine grains of desert sand, highlighting a documentary and poetic style through high-contrast shadows. The movement of the sun draws the arches of the buildings while casting geometric shapes on the ground where the wind blows.

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Abu Dhabi, 2016

“The green was fierce, beautiful, with so many shades that it was unfair to call them all by the same name.”

Mariana Enríquez

MALAYSIA

How do we choose to remember?

The reflection of the Petronas Towers on a mirrored building in the first photograph, taken in the capital Kuala Lumpur, gives the impression that they are a strange oasis within the image, intentionally placed with some artistic purpose. It could simply be a great photograph, or it may recall one of the basic principles of an experienced wanderer: using tall buildings as reference points in global metropolises. These are some of the ideas explored by passersby as they observe the skyscrapers from this perspective.

A country divided by the South China Sea into a western and eastern part, multi-religious and megadiverse. Malaysia is largely made up of ancient jungles, tropical forests, national parks, ecological reserves, magmatic and limestone rocks like those of Batu Caves, with caverns used as Hindu temples, a sanctuary for bats, spiders, and home to macaques.

Green foliage covers the facades of temples, forms labyrinths and bridges, and completes the square geometric patterns in the tea fields of Cameron Highlands.

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Malasia, 2014

"[…] it is true that in the fields of China or India, ways of life can be described that have not changed at all since the times of Buddha or Confucius. But whatever the case, the path we had taken was undoubtedly the one most in line with our nature."

Junichiro Tanizaki

LABRANG

Does the landscape determine the way we remember?

At first glance in the valley, long rows of colored square pieces of fabric, known as lungta, can be seen, each with different prayers. These are prayer flags that adorn monasteries, mountain ranges, and Buddhist funerary monuments, often raised during Tibetan New Year.

They represent aspects of Tibetan culture: harmony with the gods, animals, and people. In a specific order, they go from blue (space-sky), white (water), red (fire), green (air), and yellow (earth).

Near Lebrang, one of the main Buddhist monasteries in Xiahe, are the Sangke grasslands at 3,000 meters above sea level. In the summer, it’s possible to see the camps of nomadic families and their herds of yaks grazing near the Daxia River.

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Lebrang, China, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Lebrang, China, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Lebrang, China, 2016

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Lebrang, China, 2016

"Before an image—no matter how recent or contemporary it may be—the past never stops reconfiguring itself, as this image only becomes conceivable within a construction of memory, if not obsession."

Georges Didi-Huberman

SYRIA

Where and how was history written?

In the Syrian desert once stood the city of Palmyra, one of the most significant sites in ancient history due to its monumental ruins, which bear inscriptions revealing its existence during the first centuries AD. The presence of architectural elements testifies to the cultural development and convergence of styles between the Persian and Roman Empires, divided by the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1980, Palmyra was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These photographs were taken in 2004, and in 2015 the area was destroyed by the Islamic State (IS) during the Syrian Civil War.

Ferney Manrique’s series serves a dual purpose: it functions as an image-archive to remember millennia of history, while also acting as a souvenir of ruin and destruction, with the intention of reconstructing it.

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Ferney Manrique Aragón

Siria, 2004

Hi

We’d love to hear from you

© 2024 | Ferney Manrique Aragón | All rights reserved

error: Content is protected !!