Class of 2020: Lidia Huerta

Lidia Huerta

Lidia Huerta is a Catalan-Peruvian photographer currently based in London. She spent most of her childhood in a small town by the Pacific Ocean and then radically moved to New York with her family. Moving around never really stopped; nostalgia and rediscovery became permanent friends and can be seen in every photo she takes. Colour, light and feeling are an important part of her life and photographic process. You can follow her work here.

“My flatshare in London”

— Where are you spending the lockdown?

“By the sea or surrounded by nature”

— Where, if anywhere, would you rather be?

“My photography camera”

— What item in your current studio environment are you most grateful for?

“Almost every day, especially when the sun goes down a bit. The lighting is inspiring. I tend to do it from the little terrace space to capture different angles and lights/styles from the same space”

— When do you tend to create art?

Lidia Huerta, Adulthood

Lidia Huerta, Blossoming of an Artist

“Hokusai and Studio Ghibli’s use of colour is a delight to my eyes. Their works are ones that demonstrate the absolute relevance of illustrating the world in a different light. ”

— Which artwork is giving you inspiration during this time?

“Supalonely”

— Which song is going to represent the summer of 2020 for you?

“Simone de Beauvoir was a revolutionary thinker, author and feminist theorist, who expressed what she believed with bravery and drive for the times she lived in. I think that’s exactly what many artists need, the strength and bravery to go ahead and realize our ideas, to be fearless of our own expression and other’s judgment and if we can, to use it for social change.

I want to use my art to create positive social impact and in this case I feel like Beauvoir could teach me a lot about that. I would come out a new person out of lockdown! ”

— Who would you want to self-isolate with, if you could choose any figure from history?

“It has generated a lot of overall stress and uncertainty. Many of the projects I was part of or wanted to take part of have been cancelled as well as some exhibitions making it very difficult to be hopeful. The safety measures will make it difficult to shoot films or photography with other people/subjects or take transport to place. But we have to learn to adapt”

— Why might the pandemic have impacted your artistic purpose?

“Not necessarily using quarantine as a subject but it has definitely helped me to explore other subjects most of them have to do with the theme of self-discovery”

— Would you say you feel the need to respond to this quarantine as a subject in your art?

“Seeing my family, going to the museums and galleries and seeing some art, traveling to the seaside and being able to continue creating without restrictions, carrying on the projects we left undone”

— What are you looking forward to doing once it is over?

Lidia Huerta, Il silenzio è buono

Lidia’s Last Artwork Before Lockdown:

The Self

One of the projects I started out during lockdown in relation to self-discovery. Portraying emotions of uncertainty through images (from my outside patio).