Sonia E. Barrett

Reino Unido

 

Born in the UK to Jamaican and German parents, Sonia Barrett grew up in Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Cyprus and the UK. She studied Philosophy, Literature and International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and received her MFA from the Transart Institute in Berlin/New York. Sonia reinterprets antique European furniture from the 18th and 19th centuries, characterized by the inclusion of lion's feet. With this process she produces mainly sculptural works, installations and videos. The works reflect on the division between the animal, the human and the objectual; as well as the relationship between the work table or chair and the user who occupies them. Her work dismantles the boundaries between the determinate and the determinant, with a focus on race and gender. Through her sculptural practice, she fissures and manifests strategies for the coexistence of multiple existences and mourning. She has exhibited at the National Gallery of Jamaica, Tate Britain, 32 Degrees East Gallery Kampala in Uganda and the Heinrich Böll Institute in Germany, among others.

 

Sonia E. Barret. Trenzando el mapa, 2025. Vista de instalación. Foto: Byron Mármol. Cortesía: Fundación Paiz / Bienal de Arte Paiz
Sonia E. Barret. Dreading the Map, 2025. Installation view. Photo: Byron Mármol. Courtesy: Fundación Paiz / Bienal de Arte Paiz

 

 

Obra participante en la bienal

ES

Trenzando el mapa, 2025
Instalación de mapas trenzados
Dimensiones ambientales
Cortesía de la artista 

Creando una instalación aérea inmersiva a través de la acción colectiva de trenzar mapas, esta obra subvierte la cartografía tradicional, desgarrando y trenzando en comunidad mapas antiguos y nuevos de naciones colonizadoras y colonizadas, herramientas de colonización y guerra. 

Ofreciendo una nueva perspectiva para entender la historia y la geografía, la acción y su producto cuestionan activamente el poder, el movimiento y la interconexión. En lugar de representar superficies fijas, se privilegian el movimiento, lo invisible y lo subterráneo, rechazando la idea del control total del territorio y la separación cuadriculada entre “aquí” y “allí”, afirmando una geografía interconectada e incognoscible. 

 

EN

Dreading the Map, 2025 
Woven Map Installation 
Environmental dimensions 
Courtesy of the Artist  

Creating an immersive aerial installation through the collective action of braiding maps, this work subverts traditional cartography, shredding and braiding in community old and new maps of the coloniser and colonised nations tools of colonisation and war.  

Offering a new perspective for understanding history and geography, the action and its product actively question power, movement, and interconnection. Instead of representing fixed surfaces, movement, the invisible, and the subterranean are privileged, rejecting the idea of total control of the territory and the gridded separation between “here” and “there” asserting an unknowable interconnected geography.