Erika Harrsch
I was born and raised in Mexico (with Aztec, Spanish, French, and German antecedents), as a diasporic LatinX artist, living in NY since 2001, the sense of place is critically reflected in my sense of self—Martin Heidegger defined the modern condition as one of an existential Unheimlichkeit or homelessness. This nomadic condition of uncertainty, instability, ambiguity, and impermanence feeds my artistic practice enabling me to reflect critically on my own personal background, displacement, nationality, passports, borders and all the contradictions toward the physical demands of globalization. Through an interdisciplinary practice, I engage the viewer by staging thought-provoking associations: masculine-feminine, organic-inorganic, rooted-migrant, earthbound-fleeting… These conditions enable me to elaborate visually in an enigmatic manner about the permanent tension between the need for a place and the idea of feeling out of place so common among many of us in today´s society. My works are infused with multilayered references, meanings, and multiple narratives concerned with individual and cultural preoccupations, as well as critical social, political, and environmental issues. Over the last fifteen years I have established the butterfly as a signature motif. As the emblematic Monarch butterfly, this colorful winged creature, with its multistage life cycle and symbolic association with freedom and flight, is in effect, a metaphor for themes such as gender, migration, nationality, and the relationship human beings have with their own nature and fragility.
