Ana Mendes — Portfolio — Slash Paris

Ana Mendes is an artist that works in video, performance, photography and installation to speak on subjects such as memory, language and identity.

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The People’s Collection is a project in which people who originate from colonised countries are invited to visit ethnographic museums around the world and rethink their identity on a post-colonial context.

’Map Series’ is a performance installation in which Mendes stitches with a sewing machine old paper maps that represent a certain colonial empire — e. g., France, UK, Germany — sitting at a table and chair, stitching all the maps, while a camera projects the image of the needle of the machine perforating the map onto the wall. Sound equipment amplifies the sounds emitted by the sound machine. After the performance, the map composed of all the stitched maps stays at the room, as an installation, together with the sewing machine and a sound composition based on the sounds emitted by the sewing machine.

’Kinky’ installation in which Mendes embroiders by hand commercial words used to sell real hair of women originated from colonised countries onto large pieces of fabric — raw cotton used by the fashion industry to make samples. The words are copied from wigs of labels, exploring the connections between the fashion industry, colonialism and identity — for example, one wig from Africa sells as kinky whereas one from Europe retails as charm or glamour.

Performance/installation in which Mendes draws one circle, first with the right arm and afterwards with the left once using a pencil (once per hand), until it finishes. The work explores the connection between the right and left side of the brain — drawing and neuroscience.