In her exhibition “The Island of Sam Nunca,” the prestigious photographer Andrea Santolaya presents a portrait of our archipelago through its mysteries and religious rites. The exhibition will be on show until September 14 at the Leica Store in Madrid. It explores the daily life, festivals, and landscape of the Azores.
Andrea Santolaya, granddaughter of the famous gallery owner Eugenia Niño and niece of the famous Spanish designer Carolina Herrera, arrived on the island of S. Miguel seven years ago for a brief artistic residency and ended up staying here. She lives in Pico do Refúgio, a 16th-century house in Rabo de Peixe.
With an enviable CV, including a master’s degree in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York, she has worked for Manolo Valdés and Carlos García-Alix and won first prize from the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport for the best edition in the Arts for her book, “Manolo Valdés, Jardín Botánico de Nueva York,” published by Fábrica Editorial. He also won the First Prize “Aula de Artes Plásticas” from the University of Murcia, and many of his works are in the collections of various institutions.
Regarding the exhibition “The Island of Sam Nunca,” several Spanish newspapers and magazines, such as El Mundo and Vanity Fair magazine, have highlighted Andrea Santolaya’s exhibition, which was highly appreciated by the specialized public at the PHoto ESPAÑA Festival, and the vernissage took place to great acclaim. On September 4, the Madrid photographer will give a talk at the Leica Akademie in Madrid to close the exhibition, which will end on September 14.
This is a multi-year project, which can be seen at the Leica Store in Madrid, and in which the result of a book of stories is shown; the photographer approaches reality through a journalistic prism, very closely and with fixed lenses, to end up boldly “playing” with the aura, the fog, the senses, portraying a land of fishermen who dream of emigrating to the USA and Canada, maintaining the rituals as a way of life. An exhibition that boldly highlights the gaze of a prestigious and experienced photographer on stunning moments, wisely captured, of the island’s way of life.
The award-winning artist Santolaya will show her project at the Carlos Machado Museum in March 2025.
Andrea Santolaya coordinated the exhibition “By Sea,” which was on show at the Arquipélago Contemporary Arts Center in Ribeira Grande until July 28.
This exhibition was created by the National Arts Plan as part of the School Cultural Project and combines works developed by the students, works from the Arquipélago Collection, and the Carlos Machado Museum to represent the territory of the north coast and its community in its various forms.
Over the course of eight months, Andrea Santolaya has been working as the resident artist of the School Cultural Project by the National Arts Plan, with students from the Ribeira Grande Professional School, based in Rabo de Peixe, and teachers from the Maia EBI. The work has been extended to students from the same school.
The “A Besuga” project was based on the creation of a sea creature, imagined by the project’s participants, that inhabits the sea on the north coast of São Miguel Island, between Rabo de Peixe and Maia. Thus, the exhibition “By Sea,” with the work of students from the two schools, aimed to translate the natural, social, and cultural ecosystem of this territory on the north coast of the island, the Besuga’s natural habitat.
António Pedro Costa in Correio dos Açores