Curator: Irene Gelfman
In this new edition of the Video Project, six video works by American artist and biologist Donna Conlon are presented. Conlon lives and works in Panama and maintains a strong connection with the region. The selection explores the relationship between human beings and the natural world—a narrative thread that runs through all her work.
Conlon’s practice brings her scientific attention to the field of art, where, without resorting to direct denunciation, she offers a critical and poetic gaze on the human impact on the environment. In this way, the exhibition space seeks to create a new landscape that reveals both the vulnerability of natural spaces and the fragility of our relationship with them.
Conlon focuses on what often goes unnoticed: displaced objects, repeated actions, fragments that accumulate and decompose. Her works do not illustrate ideas; they distill them. Through videos, photographs, and subtle interventions, she exposes the social, political, and environmental contradictions that define our present—again, without resorting to direct denunciation.
In Presagio (2022), a bird flies from a pristine forest toward devastated lands, symbolizing the human imprint on nature. Los Maníferos (2021) presents a parallel world where artificial nature is the norm and survival is the only option. De Las Cenizas (2019) shows nature’s resilience in the face of human action. Zona de confort (2010) questions the social conventions that constrain us. El Basurero (2009) critiques capitalism and its role in the climate crisis. Marea Baja (2004) reflects on the impact of human activity on our natural resources. Refugio natural (2003) reveals the life hidden beneath the trash.
The exhibition offers a profound and moving perspective on Conlon’s work, highlighting her ability to capture the complexity of the human condition and our relationship with the environment.
Donna Conlon’s participation is courtesy of Galería Espacio Mínimo (Madrid) and Galería Diablo Rosso (Panama City).
Photo: Alfredo J Martiz J.
Trained as a biologist, Donna Conlon brings her scientific focus into the field of art, where she observes her immediate surroundings with the same precision. Through everyday gestures, urban debris, and invisible patterns in daily life, her work reveals the tensions that underlie the relationship between human beings and the natural world.
Conlon concentrates on what often goes unnoticed: displaced objects, repeated actions, fragments that accumulate and decompose. Her works do not illustrate ideas; they distill them. Through videos, photographs, and minimal interventions, she exposes the social, political, and environmental contradictions that define our present, without resorting to direct denunciation.
In her practice, the banal becomes evidence. The immediate environment emerges as archive, field of study, and poetic territory. On a more intimate level, her works are also meditations on fragility, uncertainty, and impermanence: an invitation to observe the world with greater attention and to reconsider the ways in which we inhabit it.