“There is another world, but it is in this one,” said Surrealist poet Paul Éluard. In this exhibition, artists look to the future, imagining how we move forward from the tumultuous events of the past year. [read more]
Art in the Plague Year is an online exhibition organized by UCR ARTS: California Museum of Photography and curated by Douglas McCulloh, Nikolay Maslov, and Rita Sobreiro Souther. UCR ARTS’s programs are supported by UCR College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the City of Riverside, Altura Credit Union, and Anheuser-Busch.
All works in this exhibition are reproduced with permission of the artists/copyright holders. Works (images, video, audio or other content) must not be used or reproduced for any purposes other than fair use without prior consent of the artists.
(b. 1988, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico. Lives and works in Acuamanala, Tlaxcala, Mexico)
Confined Innocence
Evelyn Corte Espinosa’s photographs are about innocence, uncertainty, and vulnerability viewed in the mirror of children—her own, Diego and Sofía. She pictures them in coronavirus confinement in Mexico City. In a world upended, children take flight into imagination and lift into creative air with startling ease.
“Facing the unknown puts us in a vulnerable situation. In the face of the uncertainty, we question ourselves again and again: when will everything return to normal? When will it end? or When will there be a cure?” Diego and Sofía face their own questions. “When will I go back to school? Can go out to the park today? Why can’t I visit my grandparents? Why can’t I hug my friend? Are they also sick?” These are questions Evelyn Corte Espinosa can answer. “But there is one I have not been able to answer: Will we also get coronavirus?” Ultimately, Espinosa’s project is about resilience and hope. “I have been a witness, like many other parents, of the innocence with which children face this pandemic and also of how fun their world is, full of colors and fantasies, questions to which sometimes there is no answer—but to which they decide to give one—and how, despite the confinement they live in, they always hope for a better tomorrow.”
