ISABEL MUÑOZ + SUSAN MEISELAS

"HIDDEN NARRATIVES". Photography exhibition. ISABEL MUÑOZ + SUSAN MEISELAS I September 2023- March 2024 I Arendt House, LUXEMBOURG  I In collaboration with Arendt and Art 

The exhibition brings together two very different personalities and artistic styles in photography, while simultaneously revealing a shared commitment to humanitarian causes, particularly those concerning women. Both place social and political introspection at the heart of their artistic approach, which requires engagement, active listening and empathy. As the title suggests, there are several stories hiding within each photo. In this exhibition, the two photographers tell the stories of different women visually, with strength and dignity, while subtly evoking the context in which the images were taken.

Isabel Muñoz’s magnificent photos in the Danza Khmer (Khmer dance) series are initially striking for the beauty of the gestures, the movement of the body and the expression of sensuality, but behind these vivid images lie a multitude of levels of interpretation. Isabel Muñoz created this series of Piseth Pilika, principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, in Cambodia in 1996, 20 years after the Khmer Rouge genocide, and 3 years before Pilika was assassinated. It is not important to know all the details of the case, but the general context contributes to the narrative force.

Political, public and personal stories fuel Isabel Muñoz’s photographs, which tell of the human condition through a female perspective, such as her portraits of Congolese women, who are full of hope despite the violence and rape they have suffered, or the Locura series, which in its seriality becomes a kind of mirror of society.

Known for her iconic photograph of the Nicaraguan guerrilla (1979), Susan Meiselas has continued to fight oppression throughout the years, always taking photographs that strike the right balance between the human relationship and the particular environment, between photographer and photographed, between representation and experience.

In her series A Room of Their Own (2015- 2017), Susan Meiselas tackles the theme of domestic violence against women from a different perspective. We don’t see the injured faces or bodies of women who have been subject to violence, but instead rooms that are full and empty, tidy and chaotic, highlighting objects that in this uncertain refuge become symbols of this new life.

The exhibition sparks discussion, as the artists have sought to do in their photographic process and collaborative approach. Given the topicality of the issues, it raises questions about bearing witness, recording reality and the aesthetic sublimation of everyday life.

Paul di Felice

Susan Meiselas about the exhibition “Hidden Narratives”

Isabel Muñoz about the exhibition “Hidden Narratives”