Bridewell’s galleries are showing increasingly unmissable exhibitions. Stephanie Trujillo and Talía Belen Laing’s collaborative work, ‘Ni de aquí, ni de allá’, is one of them. It’s emotive, it’s joyful and it’s built of beautiful craft.
‘Ni de aquí, ni de allá’ translates as “not from here, not from there.” The phrase describes the experience of mixed heritage, mixed identity, mixed ethnicity, and mixed language, and the questions of belonging that that places on individuals; particularly those under the added pressures of migration and assimilation.
Both artists have dual heritage, with Peru, and wider Latin America forming a core part of their cultural identity. Peru has had that phrase in its DNA since Spanish colonisation. Every family holds a vibrant mixed heritage, leading to a rich collection of traditions and customs.
The exhibition pays homage to that heritage by engaging with craft in the widest sense. And every work has a relationship to the other.
‘Hoy por ti, Mañana por mi” (“Today for you, tomorrow for me”) reads one quilt capturing the indigenous Quechua concept of “Ayni”, or mutual reciprocity and care in the community. That sings of the question of assimilation the artists mention in their bios. How do you, as an artist, a representor of culture, prove the value of your work, and the value of your presence? Every day is a step deeper into one culture, while holding onto another.
Each woven work, each hanging, every photograph, and every assimilation of materials is a single part of presenting an entire culture, through the lens of two artists, their families, their personal histories, and their present home.
And while themes of family recur throughout, with holiday photos, family trees and themes of rescinded religious ties to Peru, this whole installation feels more open. All grounded in the present by one piece of paper asking for your ethnicity; a piece of paper with five types of White, five types of Black, five types of Asian, and ‘Other Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups’ to cover an entire continent and a six-hundred-year history of colonization and integration.
So the joy, here in abundance, through craft, installation, artefact and photography, is left unfinished, tied by interactive sculpture, unfinished self-portraits and the realisation that everything represented in these two rooms occasionally comes down to ticking a box that cites your entire heritage as ‘Other’.
It’s stunning, from start to finish, because Stephanie Trujillo and Talía Belen Laing have told a story.
If you’ve not been to Bridewell recently, or at all, turn up for this. It’s an exhibition that introduces you to the gallery, the ambition of grassroots spaces, and the ability of artists working towards one idea regardless of media.
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Ni de aquí, ni de allá is open at Bridewell Studios & Gallery until 3rd November 2024
Words, Patrick Kirk-Smith
Photography, Joeb Chard
