Teresa Solar

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Derby Square, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Derby Square, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Colin McPherson

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Colin McPherson

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar, Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark), 2021. Installation view at Exchange Flags, Liverpool Biennial 2021. Photography: Mark McNulty

Teresa Solar at MadFaber Studio, Madrid, 2021. Courtesy the artist. Photography: Pablo Alzaga

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Teresa Solar (b.1985) lives and works in Madrid, Spain. Solar works across sculpture, video, drawing and photography. Her exhibitions usually function as complete ecosystems of thought, creating complex worlds that either draw from literary works of fiction, mythology, Natural History or more terrestrial narratives that are close to her personal history.  Her practice has been focused around verbal and sensorial language capacity, including the process of translation and the construction of meaning through words and bodily enactments. In this sense, Solar approaches her sculptures and installations as corporeal functions that relate to the industrial world, where hybrid forms of existence are constantly produced; her objects, then, constitute a crossbreed between the manmade, the natural and the mythical. Recent exhibitions include Index Foundation, Stockholm (2019); Galería Travesía Cuatro Ciudad de México, México (2019); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2018); and Der Tank, Basel (2018).

Project Description

Teresa Solar presented a newly commissioned outdoor installation, titled Osteoclast (I do not know how I came to be on board this ship, this navel of my ark) (2021). The work was originally installed at Exchange Flags, then later relocated to Derby Square.

Composed of five kayaks, each sculptural piece reflects on the shape of a bone in the human anatomy. The sculptures anchor on the history of Liverpool as one of the most active ports in facilitating transatlantic trade in Europe. Solar’s work draws a parallel between bones – as hollowed structures, full of cavities, carriers of tissues, veins and cell communities – and vessels, vehicles of migration, transmitters of bodies and knowledge. In contrast to the enormous ships that were, and still are, built and docked in Merseyside, Solar’s kayaks, turned into a disarticulated skeleton, set the human body at sea level and evoke the sometimes-forgottenfragility of the human body over the sea. At the same time, they also celebrate our capacity for transition and transformation.   

Liverpool Biennial is delighted to announce the release of a limited edition by Teresa Solar. This can be purchased, here.

Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and Liverpool BID Company with support from Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and the Henry Moore Foundation.

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