Carlos Martí and Sabrina Ol are Finding Order in Confusion

January 31, 2023

Photographer Carlos Martí and artist and fashion designer Sabrina Ol share not only a love for creating and displaying emotion through art but they also both embrace order in disorder — no matter how complicated or messy their creative processes may become. Both of their works, whether through the medium of clothing or snapshots frozen in moments of time, convey human emotion and connection even in times of confusion.

Their latest collaborative project, Micromorfosis, is the embodiment of organized chaos. The two took a trip to Mexico’s most diverse and eccentric market, Mercado de Sonora, to collect subjects to photograph — a process they both called an intimate ritual in itself. The result is a collection of photos that engulfs audiences in an immersive sensory experience. Fleshy fruits are contrasted by delicate flower petals and each snapshot conveys a mini macrocosm. Fulfillment is not gained through attempting to compartmentalize the visceral details of each photo, but instead through sitting back and letting the project work its magic on you.

Interview by Kayla Curtis-Evans
Photos by Carlos Martí & Sabrina Ol

office sat down with Martí and Ol to discuss the adventure they took to Mercado de Senora, the photography process, and the surrealism that drives both the market and their culture as a whole, below.

Carlos, what did you learn from your years of fashion photography? How did you translate it to this project, and in what ways did the medium also limit you?

Carlos Martí— Well, now I think more about aesthetics. I used to do more street photography — that was the thing that I was focused on all my life, just taking my camera and walking and shooting around. I wasn't really focused on an aesthetic. I think fashion photography gave me sort of a narrow point of view. But it also taught me that it's not actually about fashion at all, it's about capturing a moment and trying to engage with people through it.

I can see how that aesthetic carries over, but there are different nuances in both subjects. In what ways did you and Sabrina bounce off of each other and collaborate for Micromorfosis?

Sabrina Ol— I think the community here in Mexico is very collaborative and we're always trying to help each other and push each other. When we started talking about the collaboration, one of the things that we both were trying to exercise was the idea of creating pictures that didn't necessarily have to do with a model wearing clothes. Because, of course, I have a fashion brand. I tend to mostly shoot pictures of people wearing my clothes. I was interested in communicating feeling without having another person on the other side of the camera. Actually composing a vibe with different elements, together with Carlos. And one of our starting points was the Sonora market and trying to get inspired by all these sounds, textures, smells, and people. We tried to recreate a ritual, or it felt that way almost. When we were composing all of the little elements, it felt like a very collaborative moment. We had a lot of control, but we also learned to trust each other and let go of that control.

Mercado de Sonora is the largest herbalist and esoteric market in the world where you explored unique subjects for this project. What are some of the most outlandish things you can find at the market?

SO — The bones were crazy.

CM — They just have everything there. They have the feathers of the most exotic birds that you can find. Bones from every animal. What Sabrina said is so true because it felt like this continuous ritual from the market to the final pictures. It's a very eclectic place.

SO — There used to be ever more available there. There are probably some illegal things being sold, but if you ask, they'll bring it to you.

CM — You get to the point where you lose yourself. After a certain point, you're walking around and you realize you don't even know where you're going anymore.

In what ways are the smells, sights, and sounds of Mercado de Sonora indicative of broader Mexican culture?

SO — Markets in general represent, visually and aesthetically, a lot of parts that explain how the country works. Many aspects of how the country works, politically and economically, definitely have that surrealistic aspect.

CM — Yes, markets in Mexico represent Mexico itself.

SO — It's very creative because it comes from a lack of space or lack of resources. There are very surreal decisions that happen here politically and economically. I think magical realism is the best way of explaining how Mexico and Latin America work. The only way of explaining it all is by putting a little bit of magic into everything and being really abstract with our words because sometimes it's impossible to translate. So going back to the market, it just represents everything — it represents surrealism and it represents order in a messy environment.

CM — And spontaneity.

SO — It represents a culture, unity, and how everyone is helping each other out. It shows that there is some kind of order in the mess, you know?

CM — You're right Sabrina, the Mercados in Mexico are kind of like an anarchist situation, but everybody's hustling and everybody has their place. It's a small representation of the whole country.

I think that notion of order in disorder paints a really detailed visual. And that translates through the photos as well. Tell us a bit more about the photography process — from conceptualization to execution. What challenges did you face in photographing these unique subjects?

CM — For me, finding focus was difficult. It's difficult to remove yourself from the process and look at it from the outside to actually identify the frame of it. We were in this flow of composing so many different elements. So I think the hard part was definitely finding focus.

SO — Definitely. Carlos would keep saying, 'Okay, we have all these elements, but what is the core? What is the spine of what we wanna communicate?' And I feel like he was definitely really good at discovering that structure and that core that made it all make sense.

I think that's kind of the hardest part of making anything — removing yourself from it and seeing it in an objective way. That's really difficult to be able to do. And with so many moving parts as you said, I bet that was challenging.

CM — But that's photography always, you know? You have to stop everything. You stop the universe and then you have to step aside and look at it from afar.

SO — I constantly have these big ideas, but I feel that's part of what I do. Part of my aesthetic is to be a little bit messy with my work, but it ends up making sense for me and for other people too. I definitely feel like as I grow and mature in my work and my process, I have come to have more anticipation. I've learned to simplify my ideas and we were able to do that really well as a team.

I know a big part of that process was choosing elements that evoked this sensory experience for audiences. How do you think senses like smell and texture elevate a photograph?

CM — Well, in this case, it was especially crazy. In the market, our senses were all over the place. There were animal pheromones and smells from everything being sold, like fish.

SO — We were there for maybe two hours and I remember moments where I had to push myself to stay there longer.

CM — It was really draining, energetically. We wanted to translate that energy into the project. When I started photography, I started because of music. It was a synesthetic process for me. I started my own kind of ritual and it was always the same ritual, listening to this hardcore music and just putting myself out of my head. And then the images came along totally just by themselves. It kind of translated the music into pictures. So we did the same thing with the market, just on a bit of a more complex level because there were so many inputs. A lot of colors, sounds, and smells. The senses are universal translators.

The photos are very visceral, which is what I love about them. The idea of sensory experiences also being a universal translator is really interesting because it helps people to connect to the photographs in this really high-level way. The photos you composed are alluring, yet uncanny at the same time. What feelings did intend for these compositions to stir in audiences? Or is the interpretation intended to be multifarious?

CM — Well, we were just like kids having fun. We didn't consider too much how they'd be received. At the moment, we were just playing around with the images. At the time, the images weren't even the point, but it was that experience we shared.

SO — But I do think that you were going for a very specific thing when you were composing the images. Definitely a darker side of the market — that visceral element that you mentioned. You don't see Micromorfosis and think about community and laughs and love; you think about the insides of the market.

As many of the plants and items for sale are used for “amarres” or love spells — mysticism is embedded in the DNA of Mercado de Sonora. Do you believe that amarres truly work?

SO — The energy there is so strong. I wouldn't say it's a myth at all just because of how I felt. I remember telling Carlos at the end of our trip, 'I feel like I'm gonna pass out.' Just because of all of the smells, noises, people screaming and selling their inventories, and the visual stimulation. In Mexico, especially with colonization, there's so much history buried underneath all the streets. I feel like it definitely has strong energy on top of that. And then the next day we took the pictures, so we brought all that energy I felt from the market. I think I'm pretty susceptible to certain environments; I think Carlos is too. We were both tripping, literally. I feel at the beginning, when we got there, I could differentiate one thing from the other. But by the end of our visit, that got harder to do.

Which is really unique because even for someone like me who has not been there or seen the market, you can feel the photos. It feels like a behind-the-scenes of the market. Although the creative process may have been more free-flowing, now that you have this collection of photos and they will be able to be seen by audiences, how would you describe the realm you want your colorful photos to transport audiences to?

SO — For me, I would hope they go to a completely alternative, surreal world where colors are different and things aren't what they seem. I would hope people have a lot of questions about what things are because, at the end of the day, the theme and title of the project is Micromorfosis. It's like these small universes composed of all these different elements. I would want people to question it, be introspective, and try to make sense of it. I think the photos can represent moods or emotions even. I love to hear what people think we're trying to say. That's one of my favorite things about creating, it's hearing what other people thought. And sometimes they tell you things that you didn't even think about, but you're like, 'Oh, that actually totally makes sense.'

CM — I like the confusion part of it. I want people to look at it and think, 'What is happening here?' This calm state moment of no sound or context — just confusion.

I think that the abstractness of the photos is also one of the biggest parts of their allure. Maybe people don't have to come to an outcome after looking at them, but I think that mystery is what draws you in initially.

SO — I have this friend who writes poetry and she's always like, 'You don't always have to try to understand poetry. You just have to feel it.' So with these pictures, maybe it's about just accepting them in that same way.

Art

Pamela Sneed’s Speaking Tongue opens at Dashwood Projects

November 15, 2024

Pamela Sneed’s latest exhibition, Speaking Tongue, will be on view at Dashwood Projects from November 20 to December 21. The show features twenty watercolor and ink paintings inspired by her recent trip to Kenya, where she was deeply moved by the elegance of giraffes, the landscapes, and the energy of Nairobi.

Blending her background as a poet and visual artist, Sneed’s work reflects on themes of identity, nature, and connection. Her paintings capture the beauty and spirit of the animals she encountered, alongside reflections on her own experiences as part of the African diaspora.

This exhibition marks Sneed’s first solo show with Dashwood Projects and will be accompanied by a new book, also titled Speaking Tongue, to be released in December.

By Enzo Holdt
Artworks by Pamela Sneed

Art

Tiebreaker - Alvin Armstrong

November 15, 2024

There is a moment of silence right before the play. Just before the racket strikes the ball as it hangs weightless in the air, breathless and charged. It’s the fleeting yet decisive instant that can alter the course of the match, determining who wins and who loses.

Alvin Armstrong depicts this crucial moment in his new exhibition Tiebreaker, symbolizing the risks and rewards of competition. It’s an implication of something else at stake, where athletes push not only their bodies, but their spirits to the absolute limit.

The dynamic figures embody the strength, grace, and agility juxtaposed by the vibrant color palette evoking not just the joy of competition but the charged energy of the court.

Tiebreaker is opening Thursday, November 16th at Anna Zorina Gallery.

By Rea Brayshaw
Artworks by Alvin Armstrong

Art

The Things People Are Ashamed To Take Photos Of: The Photography and Films of Yuhan Cheng

Yuhan’s latest exhibition of photo and video work titled 窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里 takes its namesake from what could’ve been a mundane encounter. A month after moving to New York City from Chengdu, China, they stumbled across an abandoned fish tank left curbside. It reminded them of “the rotating fish in a tank that faded into the background of their mother’s home in Chengdu”, a thread connecting childhood familiarity that transformed into a symbol of greater significance in adulthood. A tank is a world within a world; a microcosm secluded from the broader chaos of the outside. Since then Yuhan has captured the other kinds of “fish tanks” closest to them in their photography and short films. Not literal ones necessarily– but intimate confined spaces in Chengdu and NYC where time stands still.

In the midst of taking snapshots of loved ones, Yuhan decided to turn their tender but examining lens on themselves. They realized shooting self-portraits unraveled a deeper understanding of their own nonbinary gender and queer sexuality. Yuhan admits in one of their short films “I hide from looking at my own body.” Yet, in the seclusion of their room which doubles as a dark room, Yuhan began to develop their first nude photos chronicling the subtle wounds; bitten cuticles, bruises, and scrapes they’ve accumulated involuntarily, once again documenting the things people choose to hide.

窗子外 Outside the Window, Inside the Tank 鱼缸里, debuted at FAR-NEAR Studio Hours a gallery in Chinatown focused on expanding the art world's view of Asia and Asian artists curated by Lulu Yao Gioiello. The event merged Yuhan’s works from the past three years, including 70 photographs, three short documentaries, and one installation. There was something uncanny about the gallery’s atmosphere – from the dollar store teal green curtains obscuring every window to the clusters of framed photos mimicking how photos of relatives are displayed in one’s childhood home, to the darkened lighting that was both disorienting and cozy. All these details were meticulously chosen to imitate the rooms depicted in Yuhan’s films and photography. In other words, the audience was invited to Yuhan’s “fishtank”, to share the odd balance of comfort and unease of being known intimately. We talked to Yuhan at Cafe Reggio to understand how their latest body of work came into being.

Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity.

Ora Margolis— Were any memories/childhood experiences you had in Chengdu important to how you've developed as an artist?

Yuhan Cheng— Growing up in Chengdu, especially in a military household, shaped and gave me a source of contention how I understood my identity. There was always a sense of conflict when it came to my body and feeling like I didn’t quite fit the expectations around me. This tension has been a driving force in my practice, pushing me to explore identity and belonging in my work.

Tell us a bit about your latest exhibition Outside the Window, Inside the Tank at Far. What headspace were you in when taking these photos?

YC— Outside the Window, Inside the Tank is about the fluidity of self; our bodies, our environments, and our identities. The idea of water as both a symbol of confinement and freedom is central to the photos and film that comprise the exhibit. This fluidity much like how I see my experience moving between Chengdu and New York, where similar feelings follow me no matter where I am. Water mirrors the body, the frame, and the room, which are all containers of the self.

Previously, you’ve said you wanted the exhibition space to look "like your room". How did you make that happen and why is your NYC room important to you?

YC— My room in NYC is an extension of my identity. It’s where I feel vulnerable and where I explore myself most openly. It’s a manifestation of my sense of self. I recreated certain elements in the exhibition—the green sheer curtains, the dollar store shower curtain with bubbles, and the center installation depicted a self-portrait deteriorating in water, reminiscent of a fish in a tank. This room, like any other room or container, magnifies the tension of self-exploration.

Has your idea or comfort with your gender identity and /sexuality changed since you’ve delved into photography?

YC— Yes. The process of photography and filming has been a mirror to my own understanding of self. Initially, I was exploring my friends’ identities through the lens, but slowly, it became a tool to confront and understand my own queerness and gender identity. The process of photographing my queer friends and then myself allowed me to come to terms with who I am.

How did you and Lulu Yao of FAR-NEAR Studio meet, and what makes her a good collaborator?

YC— We first connected when I reached out with my series Princess of Funan River. Lulu understood the struggles and complexities in the work and she invited me to expand on those ideas with her. Our collaboration has worked because Lulu truly resonates with the themes I’m drawn to, like fluidity, transformation, and the intimacy of navigating belonging.

After completing Fish Tank and Remnants of an Amateur Film, what kind of movie do you want to make next?

YC— Right now, I’m more focused on writing. I need to understand what I want to say before making another film. Writing helps me find clarity;it’s a crucial part of my process.

What kind of camera do you use and why?

YC— I use a Canon AE-1. I started with it and I still love it. It's small, spontaneous, easy to use, and light. It allows me to capture moments naturally without overthinking.

What's your biggest fear?

YC— Being disconnected from my sense of self, from others, and from the things I love.

When do you feel most like yourself?

YC— It’s during those fleeting moments when I complete a project. That feeling fades quickly, leaving me searching for the next project to reconnect with that sense of fulfillment.

How do you want people to feel when they interact with your art?

YC— I want them to feel whatever resonates with them. I don’t want to prescribe the experience; it should feel right for each person.

Your work focuses on the close knit communities that surround you or various metaphorical “fish tanks”. What communities do you feel closest to?
YC— The queer artist community, both in Chengdu and NYC, has been a source of comfort and understanding for me. There’s something about shared struggles and shared creative language that feels like home.

What's the biggest difference between living life as a queer artist in NYC and in Chengdu?

YC— In both NYC and Chengdu, I’m learning more about myself. NYC offers a sense of freedom, while Chengdu is home, a place of comfort and history. Neither place defines me but both are significant parts of my path.

What are your next moves/goals?

YC— I want to continue exploring both film and photography, expanding my narrative style and experimenting across mediums. During my show, I found new ways of seeing my photographs such as by adding a window screen between frames or letting a self-portrait fade and grow mold in water. These approaches allowed me to see my work not just as 2D images but as 3D objects.

I want to keep pushing the boundaries of how photo and film can interact, and I’m also interested in trying photojournalism. My focus remains on collaborating across mediums and continuing to accumulate experiences that I can translate into sincere honest work.