How does research impact your work? 

Research is very important in my work as I often start a project from reading about a subject of interest and forming associations that lead me to source objects or images related to it in everyday encounters or sites such as Ebay; which has been a great place for mining material, its such an eclectic compendium with no national or time borders and it often leads to more research links. For the video Tlachacan I gathered images in an organic intuitive way from visits to Mexico over the course of 3 years. Beginning from my interest in Tlaloc, a pre-Columbian water deity, a narrative regarding national identity, ideas of the replica and originality and gender began to build up.

What is the role of architecture and space in your practice? 

I am very interested in the idea of the viewers’ body in relationship to the work and in allowing for a phenomenological encounter. In the case of the exhibition Metzilocan, it was meant to be seen by walking through a multitude of sculptures on the floor at knee height echoing an archeological site where the objects have been uncovered. On opposite sides two enlarged postcard images of the stone monolith attributed to Chalchiuhtlicue, a pre-Columbian female water deity, leaned on the wall, both images taken in Mexico City. One image depicted in black and white the back of the stone in the halls of the then newly opened National Museum of Archaeology, History and Ethnology photographed in the early 1900s, and the other image depicted the front of the same stone photographed in color in the 1970s in the hall it currently inhabits of the relocated and renamed museum, The National Museum of Anthropology. The position of images and transition from black and white to color bracketed the work between two places and times in the life of the monolith and the history of archeology in Mexico. In Tlalocan V, I took advantage of the Whitney Museum’s large window and applied a blue tint film that cast a water tone over the space and varied across the day, in turn at night as you stood outside the installation seemed to be engulfed inside a blue space referencing here the Tlalocan, the mythical water dwelling of Tlaloc and his cohort Chalchiuhtlicue, the two deities whose enlarged postcard images also flanked each side of the room. 

Your work spans all kinds of mediums. What do you think ties them together? 

The work is connected by theme. I approach each interest as a whole, finding the most suitable medium to better embody each idea. I think in turn all the work informs each other, as in the case of Metzilocan, the printed images and video served to contextualize the work and point toward the stream of images and thoughts behind the rest of the work in the exhibition. 

Do you think the pandemic will change your practice? If so, how? 

At the moment I have not seen any significant changes in my work due to the pandemic, but as is often in my case, time needs to recede before events come into the work. I am thinking here of video specifically, as the videos take a diaristic form that includes daily life observations and musing along with the subject of investigation. I have been working on a story dealing with water and Chalchiuhtlicue and have shot some images during the lockdown that might be in this new work. 

What have you been reading, watching, and listening to recently? 

In the studio I have mostly been alternating between listening to books on tape and listening to instrumental music such as Phillip Glass, Nils Frahm and Brian Eno. I am a big film fan and this time I have been rewatching the films of Agnes Varda, I am drawn to her humor and personal observations, I am also getting back into Ingmar Bergman and his exploration of the psyche throughout his films, along with another favorite, Andrei Tarkovsky, for his memory and oneiric visual poetics. I am also simultaneously reading Bergman’s autobiography “The Magic Lantern” and Tarkovsky’s “Sculpting in Time.” Next month I am going on a road trip to see my family in Chicago and will be listening to a biography of Alexander von Humboldt. I like the idea of driving as I listen to an earlier explorer. My adventure won’t be as epic but it will definitely offer lots of new appreciation and wonder as I visit sites and museums along my way. 

Congratulations on your forthcoming exhibition! Are you creating new work for your show? What can you tell us about it? 

Thank you. The new body of work revolves around the Mayan site of Chichen Itza, specifically the pyramid of El Castillo and the sink-hole Cenote Sagrado. I have been thinking of ideas of time and the equinoxes in relationship to rituals and positions of these sites. The Mayans had such profound knowledge of the cosmos and the relationship of themselves to it. Structures such as El Castillo were built with the equinox in mind. In contrast our modern built environment is in general very disconnected from nature. I think this view of ourselves in the world along with other factors contributes to our lack of respect for the earth and leads us to current crisis-such as climate-that we are seeing. I am intrested in how these an other indigenous belief systems operated as ways to coexist with nature. 

about claudia peña salinas

Born in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Claudia Peña Salinas received her BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and received her MFA from Hunter College in New York in 2009. Peña Salinas has exhibited at Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Arizona State University Art Museum, Arizona; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan; Queens Museum of Art, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; El Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico; and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico. She is a recipient of the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.