ARTIST BIO
Born in Mexico in 1997, he holds a degree in Visual Arts with honours from the National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving “ENPEG- La Esmeralda” (INBAL). He also has studies in painting from the Antigua Academia de San Carlos (FAD-UNAM), and philosophy studies from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City Campus, ranging from the history of philosophy to its connections with psychoanalysis. Additionally, he trained as a filmmaker and screenwriter at the Universidad Iberoamericana, the Cinematographic Capacity Centre (INBA), and Vancouver Film School. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in photography at the Royal College of Art in London.
He is co-founder of the LUX-19 Exhibition, a film festival that blends the visual arts with cinematic arts, showcasing over 60 short films and involving the major universities of Mexico City. As an artist, his work has been exhibited at the National Centre for the Arts, festivals such as the “International Festival of Art and Culture Quimera,” the Mexico International Photography Festival 2022, and the Valparaíso International Photography Festival 2022 (Chile), where he won the edition and returned to exhibit the project in the 2023 edition, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Tate Modern, and the Malta Biennale 2024 edition.
His photobook "In Search of Absences" is currently part of the official selection of the Kassel Dummy Award (Germany). He was a finalist for London Camera Exchange Photographer of the Year 2024.
As a visual artist, his works have been exhibited in Mexico, London, Cambridge, Birmingham (UK), Valparaíso (Chile), and Valletta (Malta). His photobook has been part of exhibitions in Barcelona (Spain), Tokyo (Japan), Hong Kong (China), and Melbourne (Australia), to name a few. He currently lives and works in London, where he focuses on his latest production.
EDUCATION
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MA Photography. Royal College of Art. 2024
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BA Visual Arts. National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving "ENPEG- La Esmeralda" (INBAL). 2021
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Diploma in art history, with emphasis on image. Autonomous Mexico State University. 2021
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Seminar on Philosophical Scenarios on the Pandemic: Capitalism, Biopolitics and Nihilism. Institute of Critical Studies “17”. 2020
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Diploma Between the Critical Frontiers of Philosophy and Psychology. Iberoamerican University. 2020
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Workshop; "Mainland" by Jan Hendix. MUAC and the studio of the artist. 2020
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Diploma in Philosophy and Today. Iberoamerican University. 2020
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Diploma in History of Philosophy. Iberoamerican University. 2019
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Oil and acrylic easel painting workshop. Academy of San Carlos FAD, UNAM. 2018
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Workshop "Art market" by Sergio Gómez-Tagle -French Alliance Mexico. 2018.
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Tattoo Workshop. Border Cultural Center.2018
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Selected to participate in the Workshop: "Naked appearance: desire and the object in the work in the work of Jeff Koons and Marcel Duchamp" with Jeff Koons. SOMA MEXICO. 2018
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Horror Script Workshop . Cinematographic Training Center.2017.
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Film Script Course: theoretical basis and practical writing for films. Iberoamerican University. 2016.
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Intensive Film Production Course. Vancouver Film School. 2016
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Intensive Film Script Writing Course. Vancouver Film School. 2016
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
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Fragments. Studios Mondragón (Mexico City, Mexico) 2024
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Ripples. Hypha Studios (London, United Kingdom) 2024
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Offprint London. Tate Modern (London, United Kingdom).2024
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The Regenerative Power of War in the Arts, Part.II. The University of Cambridge Judge Business School (Cambridge, United Kingdom). 2024
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The Regenerative Power of War in the Arts, Part I. Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, United Kingdom). 2024
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Simple Expressions of Complex Thoughts. Biennale di Malta (Valletta, Malta). 2024
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LCE Photographer of the Year. NEC 2024 (Birmingham,United Kingdom). 2024
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Mellow Memories. Royal College of Art (London,United Kingdom). 2023
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Ancestral Resonance. Nina Menocal Gallery (Mexico City, Mexico). 2023
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Tell Me Where We Are. Valparaíso International Photography Festival (Valparaiso, Chile). 2023
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Memento mori. Yila´ob Cultural Center (Mexico City, Mexico). 2021
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The Deadlights of flesh and blood. Rosa Gorilla Gallery (Mexico City, Mexico). 2021
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Visual Chronicles of the Pandemic Vol.1. National Center for the Arts (Mexico City, Mexico) 2021
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Rezonance Festival. Verdeespina Studios (Mexico City, Mexico) 2019
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Quimera International Art and Culture Festival (Mexico City, Mexico) 2011, 2012 and 2013
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María Clavel Gallery. Crowne Plaza (Mexico City, Mexico) 2007
In Search of Absences at the participating venues and festivals within the framework of the KasselFestival. Sorted alphabetically Kassel Dummy Award 2023:
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Angkor Photo Festival & Workshops (Siem Reap, Cambodia)
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Center For Contemporary Photography (Melbourne, Australia)
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Format Festival (Derby, England)
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Fotofestiwal ( Łódź, Poland)
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Grisart (Barcelona, Spain)
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Internationale Photoszene Köln Festival ( Cologne, Germany)
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Italian Institute of Photography (Milan, Italy)
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Jakarta International Photofestival JIPFest (Jakarta,Indonesia)
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Lumenvisum (Hong Kong)
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NOKS Art Space Istanbul (Istanbul, Türkiye)
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Officine Fotografiche (Rome, Italy)
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Offset Projects (New Delhi, India)
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Organ Vida (Zagreb, Croatia)
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Photobook Week Aarhus (Aarhus, Denmark)
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PhotoIreland (Dublin, Ireland)
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Reminders Project & Reminders Photography Stronghold (Tokyo, Japan)
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Singapore International Photography Festival SIPF (Singapore)
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Space for Visual Culture and Artistic Thinking (Ankara, Türkiye)
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ZOETROPE (Athens, Greece)
AWARDS
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Finalist. LCE Photographer of the Year (United Kingdom). 2024
https://poty.lcegroup.co.uk/the-shortlist/ -
Winner. AFPE Scholarship "Creation and knowledge towards the future.CONACYT-FONCA (Mexico). 2023
https://www.cultura.gob.mx/recursos/convocatorias/202308/resul_afpe_2023.pdf
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Finalist. Kassel Dummy Award (Kassel, Germany). 2023
https://dummyaward.org/shortlist-2023/
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Winner. Valparaíso International Photography Festival (Valparaiso, Chile). 2022
https://fifv.cl/2023/
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Nominee. Mexico International Photography Festival (Mexico City, Mexico). 2022
https://ci.cultura.gob.mx/agenda/revision-de-portafolios/
SELECTED PRESS
About Malta Biennale
https://timesofmalta.com/article/valletta-exhibition-questions-shock-value-art-pieces.1091027
About Ripples exhibition
https://janelee.co/portfolio/exhibition-ripples/
https://ripplesexhibition.cargo.site/
ON ARCANUS XIII:
In times of uncertainty due to the speed of change and the way it announces other realities, these are subjects that force us to think about the present. Polo Farrera's photographic series; Arcano XIII , a fundamental card of the Marseilles tarot, translates to the visual plane the reasons for anxiety and concern that overwhelm sensitive human beings.
At first glance, the photographic construction is a reinterpretation of the tarot card, worked in detail with objects, costumes and actors who stage an abrupt transit within a cloudy natural world, characterised by violence, the manipulative role of ideologies and platforms. Communication. It would seem that death, represented by a female figure, is the element that dominates the aesthetic experience of images. However, in a more detailed approach it is possible to observe how the present obeys a basic principle of existence: constant change. The human being is by nature a destitute nomad trying to satisfy his need for stability. However, the dynamics of the world, nature and the economy demonstrate how the ultimate universal law is transformation.
In the act of blinding life there is also a way to prepare the ground for a new process. It is in this innovative sense that the reading of the images proposed by the author offers a mixture of feelings with knowledge and critical judgments about the ethics of power, the disappearance of justice or the end of history. Symbiosis , for example, portrays the various faces of extermination that mark the way towards the mutation of life due to factors such as pollution, the sacrifice of animals or the incessant weight of time on the human race.
The content of the images in the Arcano XIII series is a mixture of philosophy, literature, and contemporary thought. The 1984 image constitutes a reference that has marked the information age and the effects of these technologies on the control of the lives of billions of users of digital networks. It also makes a reference to bookish knowledge and its contribution to the positive change of humanity.
In contrast, La Derrota makes a comparison with the advances in medical science, whose amazing results in the study of pain and disease demonstrate the double role that the idea of scientific advancement implies. The image raises the question about the meaning of survival in a world devastated by climate change.
Artistically, the photographic work of Polo Farrera has a maturity and an uncommon intentionality in the emerging generation of millennial artists. The aesthetic reinterpretation of the tarot with elements belonging to contemporary life generates evocative readings through the poetic use of objects. The author has used the paraphrase to create a strange world where the horror and the verisimilitude of the images lay the foundations of a plastic discourse whose undoubted vocation is the art of critical content. In a country like ours, death must be considered the beginning of change.
José Manuel Springer- Critic and art curator
ON IN SEARCH OF ABSENCES:
Last year, I was invited to the International Photography Festival in Mexico, where I took part in portfolio reviews at the Centro de la Imagen, and it was there that I discovered the work of Polo Farrera. His presentation was rather quiet, with few words. After a few minutes of reviewing his material, I knew that it was unnecessary to ask more questions about the meaning of his work.
Death, the unavoidable reminder of our own transience, has been one of the most represented themes in the history of universal art. But how is the departure of a loved one visually materialised? Can the void they leave behind be represented?
Walking through "In Search of Absences" was entering a mysterious space inhabited by ghosts. Some of them levitated in colours and inspired me with peace, but above all, I saw them as close and luminous presences. I wanted to know who they were, why they had no faces or signs of identification. Later, I understood that they could also be my dead. The others, disfigured beings, seemed rather unsettling spectres, probably because of the rivers of paint flowing from the furrows that were their eyes. Are they sad?
The variety of resources used by Polo to approach the same theme made my perception different each time depending on his medium. Analog photography, like no other, was born to overcome forgetfulness. But sometimes it's not enough. "To remember is to deform," I read in his writings. Polo tells me that he always wanted to be a painter, and I understand why. Narrative fiction, cyanotype, palimpsest are part of this body of work that captures the need to transform loss into a new acquisition. Why? Because perhaps memory is the only home we have.
Andrea Aguad Chacur- Curator
CURATORIAL PROJECTS, WORKSHOPS AND TALKS
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Creative Director, Exhibition “Ripples” (London, United Kingdom) 2024
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Guest lecturer during Latin American Week, presenting on Latin American political histories and their influence on visual arts and photography.Goodenough college. (London, United Kingdom) 2024
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Creative Director, Exhibition “Ripples” (London, United Kingdom) 2023
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Curator, Exhibition “Mellow Memories” (London, United Kingdom) 2023
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Founder & Event Organizer. Lux-19 Film Festival (Mexico City, Mexico) 2021