Nadia Hernández

Here Nadia Hernández’s installation is arranged in the form of a procession or protest, addressing institutional architecture and the agency of the viewer in equal measure. The repeated spiral motif speaks to El Helicoide, the notorious Venezuelan prison which was conceived in the 1950s as a shopping mall – a monument to Venezuela’s prosperity and progress which is now a symbol of the country’s downward spiral. Poetry and politics coalesce for Hernández whose Venezuelan family have shared poetry across generations whilst navigating decades of political disruption, displacement and resistance to state violence. The title and sentiment of the work reanimates a phrase from a letter written by Hernandez's mother, in which she lovingly reassures her that 'we are the owners of our own happiness.’