Omar Estrada
"Consensual Data Breakthrough"
March 26 - April 21, 2018
Exhibition Statement
Consensus reality -and official history within it- is a collective specific construction: a cognitive construct conformed by a set of undisputed “facts” agreed upon by individuals and societies and as such, accepted as ultimate truth. But, does this consensus contain all the dimensions, layers of data, and alternative contexts of historical reality? Are part of this consensus all the actual facts considered in the intention of consent? What happens when accepted narratives are permeated by suppressed data?
Consensual Data Breakthrough is an scenario of alternatives that addresses our responsibility in the construction of our consensus. By problematizing narratives and different moments captured in time through three different pieces - Why the Moon?, Gambit, Emboscada - the exhibition attempts to subvert partialized historical notions that helped to build the worldviews we live in today during the Cold War, reevaluating them as ideological constructs. Like American art critic and philosopher Arthur Danto, I believe in art as “a moral adventure rather than merely an aesthetic interlude”. For me, that is the function of art: to facilitate the challenge of reformulating everything we have passively accepted and to implement the context for this re-negotiation, in order to achieve a better understanding of our times and ourselves.
Artist Bio
Omar Estrada is a Cuban visual artist who works with interdisciplinary installation, sound, video, interactivity and narrative text. His artwork explores the tensions between Art, Science & Technology in the context of social structures, questioning the validity of political, cultural and knowledge approaches as absolute perceptions.
Since 1983, Estrada has had solo shows in Cuba, the Caribbean, South America and North America and has participated in group exhibitions in Cuba, Paraguay, Brasil, Spain, France, Korea, Canada and the USA including the Havana Biennial, the Asunción Biennial in Paraguay, the Caribbean Biennial in Dominican Republic and the Curitiba Biennial in Brazil. Estrada received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts (ISA) in Havana, Cuba. He has taught Art at the bachelor and master degree level for more than 20 years.
Omar Estrada lives and works in Toronto, Canada, where he currently co-curates the international art residency program Unpack Studio Arts Projects / Residency.