Interview with Ana Teresa Ortega

"Photography is a medium that allows me investigate, know the unknown, learn and understand the world "

Abstract

The award of the 2020 National Photography Prize to Ana Teresa Ortega (Alicante, 1952) has given visibility to this not very well-known artist, although with an outstanding work. This photographer "who questions social and political systems" has expressed since the beginning of her artistic career her desire to break with the strict format of two-dimensional photography through other techniques such as sculpture or with various disciplines such as literature or history. Her reflection on the influence of the media on society and the memory of history, with important concepts for her such as oblivion or exile, make up the central part of her work, with titles such as Figures of Exile, The Library, a Metaphor of time, Gardens of memory, Thinkers, Silenced cartographies, Forced labor, Places of knowledge and scientific exile or Shadowy Presences, memory again. His last major exhibition, Past and Present. Memory and its construction, collects his works from the nineties to the present. Ana Teresa Ortega works as a teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Valencia. The interview was conducted through various emails in June 2021.