Unseeing Photography, Unseeing Space

Abstract: Through the work of Barcelona-based Consuelo Bautista (Colombia, 1957), and specifically her exhibition Son Raval (Arts Santa Mònica, 2013), this article considers a new approach to photography and space by focusing on her use of non-visual elements: sound, touch, and physical movement. I argue that, by taking photographs off the walls of the museum and out of the frame, Bautista ruptures the hierarchy of the gaze and recovers the materiality of the body, making the space of the Raval materially present, and questions the predominance of the gaze, revealing the strictures that shape knowledge. Thus, Bautista reconfigures the medium of photography and its impact on social and cultural space.