April 6 – June 9, 2024
Ileana Doble Hernandez‘s socially conscious and interdisciplinary practice includes photography, video and experimental installations. She sees her practice as a form of activism. Ileana creates multimedia projects that explore issues of gun culture, immigration and the imperialistic practices of the United States, from her perspective as a mother and as an immigrant from Mexico, living in the U.S. for more than a decade. She’s interested in the use of art as a way to provoke and challenge viewer’s preconceived representations. By combining non-traditional methods and materials, Ileana explores ways in which artist and audience collaborate. Through her postcards installation more than 500 postcards have been mailed to U.S. elected officials advocating for gun control. Since 2020 She’s been collaborating with Imaginary Lines Project, an ongoing socially engaged artistic endeavor that allows people to share their immigration journey through the U.S./Mexico border. Her works are part of public and private collections and have been published and exhibited in galleries and museums in North America, Europe and Asia. Ileana is a Studio Resident at the Boston Center for the Arts, a 2023 Boston Arts and Business Council Fellow, a 2021 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Fellow, and the 2019 College of Art and Design Outstanding Graduate Student from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Los Gringos In elementary school I learned that the American continent is only one, it’s not divided between north and south. For us, people of the United States are not Americans, because America is a continent, not a country. “Los Gringos” is a series of street photographs; some of them taken at parades and marches, with whatever camera available, over the more than twelve years that I’ve been living in the U.S. as an immigrant.What I like more about a photograph is that its meaning depends on the context in which it is experienced and on what it is juxtaposed with. When put together, I see these pictures in a very special way, almost as a diary of “America”. By juxtaposing these as diptychs I point to my nuanced perspective and to situations that feel intertwined. A clash between classes, races, genders and beliefs is still present, as it was many years ago, when Robert Frank took the road.
Pollage (Political + Collage) is a growing body of work of small collage pieces made completely analog and their counterparts as transparencies on lightboxes. At my studio, I browse magazines for hours, cutting pieces of pages (pictures or text) that ‘speak to me’. All these clippings go into my red lid box of cutouts, until ready to be summoned. With time, topics start to emerge in my mind, as I make relations by remembering imagery or phrases that I’ve cut out and relate with a topic I’m interested in. It is then when I start putting things together on a page.
