6-29 September, 2024
Patara Gallery and Lava Art Project are delighted to announce Ianitores terrestres, a solo exhibition by London-based artist Léa Porré in Tbilisi, on view from September 6th to 29th at Patara Gallery. Her debut solo show in Georgia features a new body of work that navigates the space between the sacred and the secular, exploring the passage of time as a transformative ritual.
For this immersive installation, Porré transforms Patara Gallery into a portal to another dimension. The entire room is overtaken with digital prints on the walls and a series of small wooden doors disseminated across the walls, enhancing the transformative nature of the space. On the floor, the landscape is completed with the oxidised sculptures rescued from the city’s debris, creating depth and an otherworldly quality to the room.
Porré's show reimagines the gallery space as ritualistic, symbolising profound change and serving as a rite of passage by employing the figure of the door. Rooted in the concept of cyclical time, her work uses doors as both symbolic and mythological entities that are a synecdoche of time’s passage. Historically, doors have delineated public and private spaces and marked transitions to divine realms across various cultures and mythologies, such as the Roman God Janus, who marks beginnings, endings, and transitions.
The name Ianitores terrestres references three door-related deities: Forculus, Limentinus, and Cardea, known by this name. In contraposition with Janus, a divine door keeper, these lesser-known deities, emphasise the significance of controlling liminal spaces—thresholds between different realms of existence [1] that surround us and are not necessarily divine. Thus, the physical spaces that divide us in a literal way - hinges, doors, urban planning (cardo) - and what they hide on the other side. By incorporating wooden sculptural doors, Porré underscores the importance of these thresholds into both our mundane and ritualised life.
The exhibition walls showcase Porré's 3D worldbuilding prints, which offer a deep mapping of historical and sacred sites, illustrating the power of reinterpretation and reconstruction in transforming our historical perceptions. This blending of digital and physical realms enhances the immersive nature of the exhibition, inviting viewers to embark on a journey through what remains and what awaits for us - through time.
"In her quest to pursue transhistorical visions, Porré blurs the boundaries between reality, dreams, and tales," said the curators. "This dynamic and ever-changing installation encourages viewers to rethink their relationship with history and opens up possibilities for a new engagement with our future."
It invites visitors to explore large-scale portals and hidden elements arranged in healing mandala-like patterns, prompting an explorative déambulation across time. Ultimately, it is a testament to the transformative power inherent in reimagining and reconstructing our understanding of the past. In the belief that art can re-contextualise figures - like the doors - in order to motivate a new relationship with our future. Through re-creating and enabling a new experience of the tropos of the past, we can change ourselves.
[1] Weinstock, S. (1946). Martianus Capella and the Cosmic System of the Etruscans. Journal of Roman Studies, 36(1-2), p. 106 doi:10.2307/298044.
This exhibition has been sponsored by the Women's Fund in Georgia and Tbilisi City Hall.
Léa Porré (b. 1996) is a French-Belgian artist based in London whose work is deeply embedded in the intricate weaving of cyclical time, memory, history, and myth. Her pioneering research-led practice is known for its profound engagement with historical and sacred sites, which she skillfully reimagines through the advanced technique of 3D worldbuilding, resulting in an impressive array of videos, installations, sculptures, paintings, and prints. In her physical and in-situ works, she creates mnemonic installations that are reminiscent of labyrinthian video game quests.
Her work exists in a unique interplay between the digital and physical realms, crafting immersive environments both online and in real life. Her installations range from large-scale wallpapers that act as portals to her CGI worlds, to intricately hidden sculptural elements and ornaments arranged in healing, mandala-like patterns, encouraging an explorative and meditative ambulation through time.
She has exhibited her work internationally, most recently at Pavillon Southway and MAMO Modulor in Marseille, Centre Pompidou and Brownstone Foundation in Paris, COB Gallery, Paradise Row Projects, Tate Modern in London, UK. Porré has also taken part in Akademie Schloss Solitude and ZKM Karlsruhe web residency, ‘Ghosted’, shortlisted for the 2020 Hash Award.
Lava Art Project is a curatorial platform based in London run by Spanish curator and AWITA member Belinda Martin and Spanish curator and researcher Paula Ramos Mollá. LAVA is dedicated to building curatorial and production teams for emerging and mid-career artists working in any media and at any stage of the artistic process. We champion new models of working with young artists based on true teamwork, specialising in nurturing and building careers of emerging creative talents.
In the last years, LAVA has either curated or produced several art exhibitions and projects internationally, such as “Deprisa, deprisa”, Kupfer Space, London (2023); Habitación Número 34, Madrid (2020-2023); “(In) Tangible World: Posdigital Corporeality”, The Clemente Center, New York (2022); “No es propio de esta época”, Centro Cultural Las Cigarreras, Alicante (2022); “Zona Cero” at Espacio Cultural El Tanque, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (2021); Organ Vida Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2020).
@leaporre www.leaporre.com
@lavaproject www.lavaproject.com
Photos : Vato Bakradze
exhibition supported by Tbilisi City Hall and WOmens Fund in Georgia