Transphotography, or how to look at the other side of an artwork. Marta Fàbregas explores “through” old pictures of marginalized and enslaved women (who had nothing, not even a name or an identity, their identity stolen by their exploiters), in order to achieve a new, carried away universe. And with this new approach, she makes the new feminine dignity trans-visible.

Transphotography is about seeing, beyond these old pictures of women, a different reality, a different depiction of women. It’s about “looking farther than sight” in order to give a new dignity and a new dimension to these women, who were enslaved and abused during their lifetime. With this work, Marta Fàbregas wants to restore the dignity that was snatched from them, thus paying tribute to all women in the world, women that, still today, are forced to live in a society that doesn’t respect them or value them on equal ground with men.

Colonized, the work that Marta Fàbregas presents today, is a reflection about women, about the way they have been treated throughout history; and, at the same time, it’s a claim about the female universe.

The work process of these pieces was long and complex, but it started with an image search of women who had been “colonized”, stolen, raped and torn from their world. Women who suffered a double colonization: because they were indigenous, belonging to the colony, and because they were women, belonging to men.

This work went on, in the technical area, with the transformation and the translation of the images into other supports and textures, until it reached its final shape. Its process represents this transformation towards freedom and dignity.

The works by Marta Fàbregas take us, on a more theoretical level, to the transvisible theories, according to which there is a passage between the visible fact and the invisible. It’s like the instant of a sight, like a lightning, that allows us to see beyond the visible fact. And at that precise moment, works achieve a new dimension, a new identity. Which is the new identity Marta Fàbregas looks for.

And they also refer to a different artistic concept, appropriationism, the act of stealing from other artists in order to build a new work. Here she uses some old pictures, from other authors, to create new work and take it from past to present with a new understanding and a new purpose.

Finally, this series is deeply feminist and vindicatory. And I love that. I am a true believer in the feminist revolution, in women’s revolution. And I believe this revolution is also taking place in the world of art.

Marc Vidal i Aparicio

 

INFO:

Trans- is a prefix that means “on the other side" or "through".