Imagínate vivir en suiza y perderte esto
Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, Sankt Gallen
15 March – 18 May 2025

Sofía Salazar Rosales (1999 in Quito/EC, lives in Amsterdam/NL) will present her material-poetic practice in a Swiss institution for the first time. Her title, Imagínate vivir en Suiza y perderte esto (Spanish: Imagine living in Switzerland and missing this, alludes to a popular Latin American meme in which absurd situations from everyday Latin American life are self-ironically contrasted with the stereotypically well-ordered life in Switzerland. While the Ecuadorian artist works with an unbridled variety of materials—glass beads, paraffin, epoxy, bronze powder, polyester resin, fiberglass, vinyl glue, plant seeds, construction paper, copper, concrete, color pigments, oak wood, iron filings, plaster, cotton wool, gauze, and glass aggregate, to name just a few—she decisively emphasizes the handcrafted as a resistant aesthetic. Her sculptures and installations are charged with political and sociological content and question notions of productivity and value.

In a double exhibition, her works meet the artistic approach of Majd Abdel Hamid (born 1988 in Damascus, Syria, lives in Paris, France, and Beirut, Lebanon). Both artists are united by their poetic focus on themes of identity, time, fragility, and materiality.

Photo by E. Sommer (Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen)