Santiago Martinelli
La Plata, Argentina
Bio:
Santiago Martinelli (1997) is from La Plata, Argentina. His work is focused on the reutilization and intervention of discarded photographs.
How did you come about publishing your first book?
Descomposición started in late 2017 when I was given an old Ophthalmology manual, the images on it were beautifully taken and at the same time they were poorly maintained, so I started working with them on the idea of making a book. At the start of 2018 I applied and were selected for an educational grant provided by Turma on Buenos Aires, where their program is focused around photo-books, so there I developed it.
After that in 2019 I kept working on the edition with my teacher back then, Martín Bollati (martinbollati.com), who later became the publisher of the book as well. His publishing house, Sed, has a very interesting approach towards the photographic image, which I sincerely recommend to check out.
Do you feel being based in Latin America affects your work and if so in what way?
Well you know, we’re always conditioned by our context at the time art is produced, I think that most of the times is just inherent to life. I guess the only thing that always conditions me is the lack of fonds to can develop what I’d like to do, but again that is almost inherent to most of the freelance artists around.
Besides that, Latin America is so diverse and rich of artistic practices that’s kind of hard to find some things in common between it all, but I perceive that historically it tends to be very political and critical about the realities lived here. Guess I feel identified by these aspects of the latin American conjuncture.
How do you conceptualize your imagery, whats your process?
I mostly work through appropriation because I’m very interested in the way we look at images taken out of context. My projects tends to be build over the images selected and the subject and mediums they come from, always trying to recreate a different point of view for those images, therefore I’m interested in different devices to formalize them, such as books or online platforms.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
From the internet, films and books, as well of being part of different workshops where to share ideas and points of view. Is the interaction with people and their images, directly or indirectly, what inspire me in some way or another.
Do you have anything you want to accomplish before the end of 2020?
Not exactly, but I can say that to be working and studying through my artistic processes is already what I wanted, so I’m good with that.
Where can we find you online?
My works are on my website, and you can find me on instagram as well.
