A Closer Look at Lasers of Sentiment
Calgary's RAZA (which means “people”, or “community” in Spanish) is a multi-medium, high-impact artist collective formed by sisters Valentina and Laura Alejandra, who immigrated from Colombia to Canada seven years ago. Although they come from very different paths—Valentina is currently completing her BFA, and Laura has a BA in Political Science—those two paths led them to collaborate on several projects where they observe and break down the self and the world from an artistic and political point of view. Their recent audiovisual work, Lasers of Sentiment, just completed its exhibition period at Arts Commons in the Ledge gallery. They sat down with me to talk about how art can bring attention to social issues and further political discussion.
“All art is political, it comes from an innate place of a person, and the person is political. It is palatable for people to see politics through art,” Valentina says. Laura adds: “The artist’s role is not to change the world, but to bring a message to the table. To bring these diverse identities to the table, and they are not alone in the act of distilling the world.”
Political themes run throughout Lasers of Sentiment, which presents a series of photographic and psychological portraits inspired by the laser as a tool of peaceful protest that has been popularized in various places around the world and creating a movement. RAZA got inspiration for their project after seeing the photo essay Lasers of Discontent published in The Atlantic, where impactful images are shown of different protests around the world where anti-government groups have used lasers to momentarily impede sight and defend themselves against the police and anti-riot officers.
Laura shares that, in her classes at University of Calgary, she read about peaceful protesting and how every single action done by the protesters is important in carrying a message through. Any form of violence can invalidate the protestor’s claims and their message. When Valentina and Laura saw the use of lasers as a way of defense, and as a way of fighting back in a peaceful way, they thought the message and the meaning behind it was really poignant.
Lasers of Sentiment channels and deconstructs that peaceful way of protesting and elevates it to a psychological and even visceral level. In the portraits, a laser shows where the subject feels the effects of oppression: the womb, heart, stomach, temple, legs—these are the places where the subjects of Lasers of Sentiment feel the effects of oppression as signaled by not just the position of a red laser cutting through layers of their clothes, but also the emotional layers of seeing their homeland in political turmoil. RAZA’s proposition here is that the bodies that are not present in their home countries and have immigrated here still feel the effects of political unrest even from far away. They ask their subjects to describe and tell the story of what affects then and show physically where they feel that trauma. As RAZA tells me when we chat about their project, sociopolitical issues are parallel all over the world and that is what they found fascinating from talking to all the subjects and seeing the protests around the world. As Valentina states:
“This violence is not only face-to-face, but it has veins that connect many people, and go through the world, and I feel that the idea of lasers as a peaceful form of protest, are trying to guide the viewer through to the bodies that are not present, but still feel the effects of this violence. That is the central idea of Lasers of Sentiment: to ask where in your body do you feel that violence? and the answers really surprised us”
RAZA recently showed the Lasers of Sentiment video at The Ledge gallery. A documentary piece, including interviews with all the subjects in Lasers of Sentiment, can be watched here:
A scan of The Ledge gallery and all the portraits exhibited can be viewed here. Special thanks to RBC Bank Group for their support of the RBC Emerging Visual Artists Program.
