Online Exhibition
5 April – 2 May 2021
Vortic
Girl Learning to Fight and Playing Chess [Niña aprendiendo a pelear y jugando ajedrez]
proyectoamil
Lima
proyectoamil is pleased to present the virtual exhibition Queen Kong and the Fighting Girls by the Peruvian artist Elena Tejada-Herrera as part of a digital initiative by Vortic who organized a virtual collective of galleries and art institutions to exhibit in their platform and launched within the context of International Women’s Day to promote Latin American female artists.
The exhibition features Elena´s trans-disciplinary work, known for its experimental and hybrid nature. She conceives her participatory practice as cultural exchanges and during the last three years, Elena has organized self-defense training workshops for people who self-identify as women and for girls within the context of her exhibitions including this one.
In parallel to the Vortic show, the video performance Niña aprendiendo a pelear y jugando ajedrez will be exhibited at proyectoamil’s website. In this video directed and edited by the artist, a karate girl learns to defend herself and also plays chess against strong, colorful, and strategic gorillas.
About the artist
Elena Tejada-Herrera was born in Perú. She obtained a degree in painting from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Elena earned a full scholarship by the School of the Arts of Virginia Commonwealth University and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Painting, Printmaking and Extended Media. Elena obtained a certificate in socially engaged art from New York’s multi-disciplinary space The Kitchen in collaboration with Sarah Lawrence College. Additionally, she received a Trustee’s Full Merit Scholarship offered by the Department of Performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and graduated with an interdisciplinary Master of Fine Arts degree with emphasis in media arts and technology.
Tejada-Herrera’s oeuvre has earned her a range of awards and recognitions and her experimental work has been cited in reference books.
Elena has participated in more than 200 international exhibitions around the world, including solo exhibitions, historical retrospectives of Latin American art and contemporary art in museums and other institutions, international biennales such as the 11th Berlin Biennale 2020, Berlin, Germany; Frieze art fair 2019, London, United Kingdom, the traveling exhibition Arte # vida, arte de Acción en las Américas, organized by El Museo del Barrio, New York, among others.
