Rafael Soldi

Imagined Futures speaks to the artist’s own trajectory, born in Peru yet having relocated to the United States as a teenager, an experience that deeply shaped his identity as a queer person. Soldi’s meditative self-portraits were taken over a period of two years in analogue photo-booths, the repetitive ritual performed inside each small cabin becoming a means to reclaim the Catholic confessionals of his youth. This work, as he explains, is ‘an attempt to mourn the imagined futures I’ve been carrying with me’. 

The power of community and the making of ties, the possibility of establishing connections despite adversity, comes to the fore in the series Entre Hermanos (Amongst Brothers). Soldi invited male-identifying queer Latinx immigrants to come together and reflect on their shared experiences. The men were then asked to step into a photo-booth set up by the artist, where they were guided into meditation. The choice to have their self-portrait made was theirs only, as the shutter release was in their hands.   

While empowering through their affect and transformative potential, the images nevertheless speak to the pain that accompanies migration. Soldi asks: ‘How do we grieve the life we left behind in order to live this one?’ And while the work gives no precise answer, it offers, even if temporarily, a space to rest and recoup.