Cristina de Middel, Unknown Soldier 04, 2016-2019

Cristina de Middel (b. 1945 in Alicante, Spain) is a photographer who explores the boundaries of truth and fiction. She blends documentary photography with unusual techniques that result in conceptual pieces that reconstruct archteypes and narratives of our modern day society. Originally getting her start as a photojournalist, de Middel began her artistic career with the series 'Afronauts' in 2012, for which she received the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize the following year. Since then, she continuously produced works that investigate various themes of the human condition, including her series 'Funmilayo' and 'Unknown Soldier', both of which are featured in this exhibition. The artist has exhibited her work extensively throughout the world, and received a number of prizes for her exceptional work. Her work is collected by Metropolitan Museum, NY, Bank Art Collection Espiritu Santo, Portugal, and Museo Arte contemporáneo de Ibiza, Spain, among others.

Funmilayo Series:

In 1977 Fela Kuti, one of Africa´s most challenging and charismatic performers, released “Unknown Soldier”, a 30 minute hypnotic song that gave the account of the destruction of his house and the subsequent trial where the Nigerian army was declared innocent despite the coordinated attack and the presence of senior officers.

Attacked by an estimated 1.000 soldiers, the Kalakuta Republic was burned to the ground and many of its residents, including Fela Kuti, were badly beaten or otherwise physically abused. Fela´s mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, who was 78 years old at the time, was thrown from an upstairs window and suffered injuries that contributed to her early demise. The trial pointed to an “unknown soldier” as solely responsible for the crime.

Funmilayo was a veteran of Nigeria´s independence from British colonial rule and an early campaigner for African women´s rights. She founded the first woman´s union to avoid excessive taxation in the markets; she was a crucial voice in the obtention of the right to vote and was also the first African woman to drive a car.

Photography has long been understood as the raw material for historians to write the account of the facts and its neutrality is only starting to be seriously questioned now in the era of fake news. In this series, Cristina De Middel assigns a mission to Photography shamelessly playing with her documentary value. She writes a different version of the facts, one where justice is served and where no context is visible, only plain layers of colours that hide the background. Soldiers are now falling and women just look at the window. They also carry the weight of tradition and manhood on their heads, as the raw material for their silent fight.

New documents that do not hide their predilections and that aim at balancing the memories that are assumed as always true.

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Cristina de Middel

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