ANA MENDES
A tale of Europeans, 2017-ongoing durational/performance, exhibition view Natural History Museum Graz, Austria, 2017 Photo courtesy Natural History Museum Vienna
A tale of Europeans, 2017-ongoing durational/performance, exhibition view Natural History Museum Graz, Austria, 2017 Photo courtesy Natural History Museum Vienna
Map Series (Germany), 2014-ongoing performance/installation (old paper maps, thread), 42 x 30 cm exhibition view Kunstraum Niederosterreich, 2016 Photo courtesy eSeL
The People’s Collection, 2014-on-going printed media, 148 x 105 mm Photo courtesy Ana Mendes
About
Ana Mendes is a writer and visual artist living and working in London and Stockholm. She works in video, performance, photography, installation and sculpture to explore subjects such as language, memory and identity.
Her work is conceptual, process-based and created with economy of means. Some of her works are created in collaborative terms with other artists, scientists and ordinary people. Usually, she spends a long period of time, researching, playing and experimenting with new ideas, until she arrives at a definitive concept. Afterwards, she develops the work on her work or in collaborative terms. For instance, in 2014, she initiated her work ‘The People’s Collection’, in which she invites people originating from colonized countries to visit ethnographic museums around the world and choose an object that they wish to see returned to the country of origin. Afterwards, she creates a collection of postcards named after each participant.
Since 2019, Mendes has worked regularly in East Asia (Japan, Taiwan and South Korea), exploring colonial legacies, philosophy and spirituality between the East and the West, namely Animism and Shintoism.
Her work is quite often described as poetic and minimalist.
Mendes has been the recipient of numerous awards for her works in photography, drawing, video, performance, drawing and literature, namely the Taoyuan Artist Award, Audience Choice Award and Honourable Mention, Jury Prize, Taoyuan Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan, and the second prize of the Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2017, London, Mac International Award, finalist, MAC, Belfast, 2016. Solo shows include: Lewisham Art House (2023), Linden Museum, Stuttgart, Natural History Museum Vienna and Graz, (all 2017). Group shows include: Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2021, Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition, Copenhagen or the Korean Gallery, Korean Cultural Centre, New York (all 2021). She was a fellow at Iaspis Stockholm, 2017, Akademie Schloss Solitude, 2016/17, Stuttgart, Foundation Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 2010/11.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist