LA OTRA GENTE

A project of ‘live portraits’, created in found locations with Ant Hampton and Greg McLaren. Developed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and shown in London at the Shunt Lounge and the National Portrait Gallery.

‘I experimented with using a hotel as a landscape for self portrait. The audience checked in to a real hotel in the dingier part of town - Hostal Juan - and found themselves in an empty room surrounded by my possessions - everything I’d taken with me, including plane stubs, books, sketchbooks. The TV was on. Music playing. The bath was full - an invitation perhaps. You were alone in my world. A scribbled note on the wall (mimicking a gallery white plaque), invited them to Room 21 - an upstairs room where they found me lying, static and silent, in bed. The room empty. No possessions, no clothes. A chair by the bed inviting them to sit with me. I was interested in the hotel room as a place of intense intimacy. And whether you got to know me more by spending time with me, or with my stuff.’ (Gemma)