Please join us for our next PRO Network webinar entitled "Connected Narratives: A Presentation and Conversation with Kedgar Volta" on April 29 at 6 PM.
Kedgar Volta will host a conversation centered around three pieces of seemingly different works that have a common underlying foundation. The first piece dates back to 2013 and the most recent one is still in the works. Kedgar will explore the process behind each piece and their evolution as they progress to completion.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Kedgar Volta
Born in 1983 in Cuba
Studied at the Superior Institute of Design, Havana, Cuba (2007)
Artist, Jacksonville, FL
Since living in Florida, Volta draws inspiration from a dual cultural perspective, creating multi-media and photographic works that represent disparate lives and environments, while serving as a narrative that reminds us of our common humanity. The work also reflects his understanding of art as a vehicle to bring form-shaping movement to the fragmented reality of our internal landscapes, in order to offer a sense of purpose and meaning through the prism of the self.
Volta is the founder and creative director of the experience design company, Castano Group in Jacksonville, Florida. He has participated in several group and solo exhibitions throughout Florida and was selected for the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art's State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now exhibition (2014-15) which subsequently traveled throughout the country, he also exhibited Project Atrium: Kedgar Volta, The Fragility of the Promise at Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Jacksonville, FL from November 15, 2019 to March 1, 2020.
False Belief that the Control Resides in Me
Video Art
Moving five years ago from his native Cuba to Jacksonville, Kedgar Volta was struck by the uninhabited spaces in American city centers. He noticed that urban cores are often abandoned after workday hours end, and apartment dwellers rarely know even their nearest neighbors. Volta created this interactive video in order to examine a very different urban experience in his homeland, where neighbor interaction and street life are constant. Presenting 24 video screens in a grid, the work suggests an apartment building with its outer wall peeled away to reveal the inhabitants’ lives and the relationships among them. One occupant sorts rice—good grains from the bad— while another seems to be recovering from a hangover.
The videos have the look of security-camera footage, casting us in the role of voyeur. If we approach too closely, however, we interrupt the lives within and then the figures move toward us and directly address us, breaking the imaginary “fourth wall.” Suddenly—in a twist worthy of Hitchcock’s Rear Window—we are no longer the viewers but the viewed.
View more of Kedgar's work below, or visit his instagram here.
The series “Cuban Being” exposes modern-day Cuba and unveils the dreams, frustrations, nostalgia, innocence, and the will of a nation marked by its history.
From the series “Cuban Being”
From the series “Cuban Being”
From the series "Urban Impositions"
"The urban spaces I'm drawn to are defined as much by people as buildings and objects. Absent any human presence, I initially found this photo series incomplete – an unfinished canvas waiting to be populated. I decided to apply my own visual process of urbanization – relocating life and activity from one space to another, and in the process, creating the kinetic urban scene that I was originally looking for.
After recording people moving through areas that approximated the physical perspective of my photos, I isolated their movements, removing all inanimate structures and objects. Applied to the photos, the dynamic elements in the projections migrate from video to print, and from conscious to concrete. Movements and paths through once empty physical spaces become defining characteristics of a new environment."
From the series "Urban Impositions"
"Speed of Change" This series extracts pixel data from Google Earth images to create temporary topography. The artwork evolves constantly. As ever more demanding schedules and data systems drive our lives, these artworks become reminders that we are still moving within the speed of each moment.
From the series "Speed of Change"
From the series "Speed of Change"
As an agency, we are committed to dismantling barriers and providing meaningful resources and training for creative and cultural professionals.
Erie Arts & Culture believes that creative and cultural professionals can play a central role in developing vibrant and healthy communities and neighborhoods when they are provided with access to Professional development, Resources, and Opportunities (PRO).
