The Grunwald Gallery at Indiana University is pleased to present Of Bodies and Borders, an exhibition of paintings, drawings and video by artist Ana Teresa Fernández (b. 1981, Tampico, Mexico). The exhibit, organized by Gallery Wendi Norris and previously shown in Miami, will open on January 11 and continue through March 2, 2019.
Since 2014, close to 120,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Central Mediterranean departing from Libya, Tunisia or Egypt on the route known as the “deadliest border in the world”. To date, according to the New York Times, 13,000 migrants have been recorded as killed or missing on this border. Once saturating the North American news, this crisis has been distilled to the periphery of our awareness. Ana Teresa Fernández aims to refocus attention on the plight of the thousands of migrants through this body of work.
This five-year project was filmed in various locations off the island of Poros, Greece. All of the works in the exhibition stem from Fernández’s performance in the depths of the ocean. In the video, “Drawn Below”, she dons her signature little black dress and heels, weighted down with 13-pound weights. While submerged, she wrestles with a bed sheet for hours, exemplifying an enduring physical and psychological performance.