Gustavo Balbela

In Letters to Ultramarine I attempt to create an anthology of the discomforts that emanate from the urban space that were I inhabit. I collect, from my own personal perspective, fragments from a upper middle class latin american landscape stressed by the echoes of colonialism and by the outcomes of globalised capitalism.

As outdated and exogenous models of progress quietly, but violently, mold the environment, I run out of landmarks and of solid ground to set my feet on. From buildings to trees, everything looks like a function of a culture whose main purpose is consumption, but that nevertheless produces nothingness. Anthropocene’s heterogeneous foam expands, suffocating everything, and smashing me in between the beauty of the sight and the rage of reality.

This space becomes a collage of structures that come from afar, often from the Global North, and that shape our dreams and ideals. They overlap, layer over layer, with minor consideration about the origin, message or context, creating an environment that is hyper codified, and yet, deprived from a deeper meaning. 

By carefully observing these pieces of absence that surround me, I seek to modulate the unavoidable tension sparked by growing up in this environment where meaningful bonds and experiences are built amid (and, sometimes, drawing from) intense cultural interference.

Gustavo Balbela (Porto Alegre, 1997) is a Brazilian artist and industrial designer who uses photography as his primary medium to explore his culture, history and society. With a BA in Industrial Design, he is particularly drawn to symbolic and aesthetic values imposed in the objects and the systems that we build and that surround us. In his work, it is frequent to observe intersections with essays, diaries or other narratives, as a means to establish context and allow for deeper commentary on the subjects.