Fernanda Laguna

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1972

            Fernanda Laguna inhabits every corner of her work. It is as if she, herself, were a collection; her tools exceed any plastic limit to settle in poetry, cultural management, advocacy, and community work. The tip of the iceberg of her work begins on some canvas, on some sheet of paper, but it expands rapidly and reveals itself as a practice that does not take art as a tool for social transformation, but achieves it with the power of her ideas, the traction of her activism, and her commitment to her context.

            With her unique gaze, Laguna introduces her concerns and passions in her work, in the form of an intimate diary, like letters we left in some drawer of our bedside table in our teenage years. Her recurring characters are a heart with a face, feet and hands, and black figures, with clippings on the canvas that Laguna humanizes and provides with, among others, character. Even shadows find an identity in her world. This artist, writer, poet, and curator illuminates new dimensions of everyday life, to review them in an intimate key and explores sexuality, love, loneliness, friendship, and memories in the form of handicrafts.

            Each of her pieces is part of a complex puzzle, woven in her inner world, a world made up of precious objects, where a strong dialogue with pop, kitsch, folkloric, and surrealist art appears. In her work, we find materials used by local artisans, such as wicker and handmade elements, often belonging to the school or children's sphere, such as cardboard, glacé paper, chains, bows, and studs.

            As a cultural manager, one of her best known achievements, together with Cecilia Pavón, is the creation of Belleza y Felicidad: an art and publishing space that operated from 1999 to 2007 in Villa Crespo and in 2003 opened a branch in Villa Fiorito that is still in operation today, where exhibitions, workshops, film cycles, and a community dining room are held.