Subida al cielo
Lúa Ribeira
Lúa Ribeira (born 1986) is a Galician (northern Spain) photographer, based in Bristol in the UK. Her work deals with the dynamics of oppression and the mechanisms of exclusion implied by the dominant culture. In 2023 Dalpine published her first monograph, entitled Subida al cielo.
Subida al ciela presents itself as one lengthy series. But it is actually comprised of five separate series made between 2016 and 2020. The book opens with pictures from the titular project: Subida al cielo (Ascent into Heaven). It shows pictures made in public parks across Bristol, her hometown, between 2017 – 2018.
The second series, Las visiones (The Visions) is made during Holy Week in Andalusia in 2019. For Aristócratas (Aristocrats), the third series, Ribeira made pictures dating back to 2016 at a religious institution in Spain that provides care for women with cognitive disablilities. The pictures of La Jungla (The Jungle) show people along the border separating Mexico and the United States. The final series, Los afortunados (The Fortunate Ones), shows pictures of young migrants at the border between Morocco and Spain.
Although taken at different places and times, the pictures still form a whole. All the pictures depict people on the margins. Ribeira captures her subjects in vulnerable or compromised situations. It’s the fragility and uncertainty which characterize her work and connect her pictures. These pictures of outsiders remind us of the work of Diane Arbus.
The pictures are documentary but certain scenes look overtly performative. This style of documentary photographing contrasts with what we expect. We’re not used that a photographer so much defines the documentation of her subjects. The pictures transcend the purely documentary and enter a place where the influence of mythological, archetypical and religious imagery resonates. The mythic and religious intermingle with the mundane and the ordinary. The pictures move between document and construct. Her work although rooted in the documentary photography has a more magical spirit. In this it resembles the work of Spanish photographer JM Ramirez-Suassi, which I reviewed before.
Subida al cielo
Photographer: Lúa Ribeira
Published by Dalpine in 2023
Hardcover, 212 pages, 102 colour photographs, 27 x 21 cm
Essay by Carlos Skliar
Shortlisted for the 2023 Paris Photo – Aperture First Photobook Award