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Photography as Sculpture: Curatorial Projects 2004-2024
2024 marks twenty years since my first long-term research project revising the history of photography. To celebrate this milestone, I am dedicating time to look back at the different projects I have curated and produced throughout these last two decades, to reflect on the different interests which have been a constant in my work. I am interested in looking at photography as one does sculpture, very much an artistic and material process that operates in three dimensions. This interest has evolved into the fields of expanded photography and post-photography -rethinking the boundaries of the medium and investigating the spaces it shares with sculpture, printmaking, drawing, performance and localised installation. As curator of exhibition and publication projects, I am fascinated by the possibilities of creating and displaying objects in space, experimenting with new ways to build narratives to connect with diverse audiences.
Selected Projects
Commissions
Writing
Essays and Reviews
Captions for Bathers
Introduction to Tom Lovelace‘s Bathers exhibition at Sid Motion Gallery, London, June 2021
On Touch (or the impossibility of touch), 2020
Shortlisted for Athens Photo Festival 2020, and was Highly Commended in the Belfast Photo Festival Open Call 2021
Spaces of Memory and Imagination on Kingdom of Sand and Cement by Peter Bogaczewicz, Daylight 2019
Under Conditions of Urgency: from ‘Buena Memoria’ to ‘The Poetics of Resistance’ on Marcelo Brodsky – Poetics Of Resistance, B. Kuehlen Verlag, 2019
Absence of Landscape – Rosario López at Eduardo Fernandez Gallery, 2018
Latin American Photography And The Legacy of 1968 on Revista SP-ARTE sp-arte/foto, 2018
Sequester by Awoiska Van der Molen, 2017
Richard Page The Dialogue of the Dogs for Francesca Maffeo Gallery, 2017
An Avid Observer on The Observation Of Trifles, by Carlos Alba, La Fábrica, 2016
Contemporary Art Colombia, TPGPublishing and Thames & Hudson, 2016
Ōtsuchi Future Memories by Alejandro Chaskielberg, 2016
Tiempo de Árbol by Marcelo Brodsky, 2015
Interviews
Broader Implications | Interview with Lucia Pizzani, 2018
I Saw People Like Butterflies | Interview with Massimo Vitali for Under The Influence Magazine, 2015
About
Rodrigo Orrantia Gomez (b.1977)
Art historian and curator, specialised in photography.
AMA – Associate of the Museums Association
MA Photography: Contemporary and Historical, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, 2011
MA History and Theory of Art and Architecture, National University of Colombia, 2004
Trustee at Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts)
Winner of the Royal Institute of British Architects Gordon Ricketts Fund, 2023
Winner Landskrona Foto Open Call 2020 for ‘The State of Things‘
Winner Format Festival Habitat Award 2017 for ‘Modern Ornithologies‘
Juror, Long-Term Projects category, World Press Photo Awards 2021
Nominator and Juror for World Press Photo 6×6 Global Talent Program
Juror for Genesis Imaging Postgraduate Award 2019
Juror for Archiboo Architectural Photography Web Award 2019
Juror for Outset Unseen Exhibition Fund 2018
Juror for La Fábrica and Photo London Book Dummy Award 2017
Co-curator at Paris College of Art, Paris Blurring The Lines 2017
Associate Mentor, Jerwood/Photoworks Awards 2015
Reviewer for PhotoLucida’s Critical Mass since 2013
Reviewer at Photomeet 2019
rodrigoorrantia(at)gmail.com
Interviews
Urbanautica: Rodrigo Orrantia – A World Existed Before You
Interview by Klaus Fruchtnis
Sotheby’s Institute of Art: Meet Alumnus Rodrigo Orrantia
Video – 2.33 min
Talks and Lectures
National Gallery, London: The artist / Week nine: The creative entrepreneur, March 2019
Photo50 Panel Discussion:
Destroyed Architecture in Photography –
Historical documents preserving (the memory of) the past or indulging aesthetics of decay?
Speakers: Chaired by Stephan Schmid, Albumen Gallery, with Fabiano Parisi represented by Cynthia Corbett Gallery,
Francesca Perry, Deputy Editor at Blueprint and Rodrigo Orrantia, Art historian and curator.
Friday 18 January 2019
SP ARTE / Foto – Brazil: “O legado de 1968 na fotografia”
Conversa entre o curador e historiador da arte colombiano Rodrigo Orrantia e o fotojornalista Evandro Texeira. Evento sujeito à lotação.
August 2018> Click here for Lecture Essay
Giovanni Ozzola “1982” at Gazelli Art House, London, 2019
YouTube PlayerFM
Nottingham Trent University – Visiting Lecturer, BA Photography (2016 -Present)
UWE MA Photography (Bristol) – Dissemination in Professional Contexts 16th Nov. 2018
London Metropolitan University – Talk/review at The Cass
Francesca Maffeo Gallery – Photobooks and Exhibitions
University of the Arts London- Presentation for Carlos Alba’s The Observation of Trifles
Francesca Maffeo Gallery – Matthew Finn in conversation with Rodrigo Orrantia
Photofusion – Broader Implications: In conversation with Lucia Pizzani, Betty Zapata, chaired by Shoair Mavlian
The Photographers’ Gallery: Guest speaker/reviewer for Folio Friday Review Session, hosted by TPG and Steve Mcleod
Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London – Lecture – Photography: Image and Power course – Latin America, Photography and Politics
Sid Motion Gallery: In Conversation: Jo Dennis and Rodrigo Orrantia