Drawn by the notion of exploring the animal side of human beings, María Portaluppi began visiting Mexico City zoo on a regular basis. She imagined that animals were characters in a story that spoke of the wild behaviour of people, so she eventually ended up visiting other places, such as museums, taxidermy studios and universities, that let her delve deeper into knowledge of the animal world. The work gradually took shape and secondary features she had not paid attention to, places, for instance, took on increasing prominence until they transformed into the series Este no es el paraíso (This is not paradise). Portaluppi depicts a decontextualized space where not only animals but darkness too are the lead players. The twilight envelops them, placing them in a setting suspended between the domestic and the natural. An intermediate space in which they seem absorbed, inanimate even; a milieu to which they have had to become accustomed. Yet they never forget this is not the paradise they belong to.

María Portaluppi was born in Quito, Ecuador, in 1980 and she currently lives in Madrid. After completing her Cinema studies in 2004, she worked as a photography director in different projects. Later she concentrated on photography, and took a postgraduate course in São Paulo in 2013. She was selected to take part in the Seminar of Contemporary Photography at the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico and in the PhotoEspaña viewings in 2015. That was the year she held her first individual show at the Casa Cino Fabiani in Guayaquil. She presently forms part of the Mexican collective Encontraste and has just received the Roberto Villagraz Scholarship from the EFTI School in Madrid.

María Portaluppi (Ecuador, 1980)
Este no es el paraíso

2017 Edition
Outdoor installation
Venue: Zabala School