2025 GBFA THESIS EXHIBITION

PUT THE SOIL OVER EVERY YEAR

August 12–August 16, 2025

Isabella Gierbolini Esteva, Hanna Sato, and Gabriela Tamar

In this dynamic exhibition of experimental works, these three artists introduce audiences to the various ways memories are constructed and how they transform recollection processes and sensibilities into an experiential ‘document’ that envisions the past in a manner that may or may not be an accurate reflection of reality or lived experience.

Gierbolini Esteva in Las Palabras Ya No Importan deploys the complex methodologies of language formation with an exploration of ‘possession’ as conjured through live performance to confront the inherent uncertainties when one is born Puerto Rican. 

In Shattered Memories Shine Above the Sea, Sato highlights the importance of tangibility through a conversation that bridges the past, the present, and explores the potentialities of what remains in store for the future in facing the near-death experience. 

Critiquing the ever-present image of the Shoah, Tamar presents a sonic approach to Holocaust memorialization in landscapes where acoustic documents fail to exist or have long been silenced. Utilizing theories of post-memory, Keyner Iz Dortn Nisht Geven questions the act of monumentality: what has been buried in the past and what can be uncovered in the future? 

Inspired by their multicultural experiences of displacement and cultural dislocation, Gierbolini Esteva, Sato, and Tamar explore the emotive power of ancestral connections and understand that it is through their creative actions that they can expand history and actualize the past as an integral part of an ever becoming and imaginative present.