Joel Jimenez Jara
Paris, France
Summer 2026 * Photography
Artist Statement
My interdisciplinary practice examines the politics of memory and how power and ideology are inscribed in space. Working across photography, installation, and moving image, I explore landscapes, architecture, and archives as carriers of shared histories, revealing how historical structures persist within contemporary life. Each project begins from sites shaped by layered temporalities, where past and present coexist and inform one another. Through these charged contexts, I investigate how narratives of progress and identity are produced, and how processes of erasure and displacement shape what is remembered. Research functions in my practice as a form of storytelling.
Archival inquiry, environmental observation, and mythological references coexist within a single framework, allowing me to move between documentation and speculation. Images and materials become vessels through which the instability of history is made visible. At the intersection of ecology, mythology, and social history, my recent work expands toward non-human narratives. Birds and rivers emerge as agents through which I explore the continuity between human and environmental memory. By reworking fragments and material traces, I seek not only to reveal what has been silenced, but to imagine new forms of relation that might emerge from those remains. My work lingers in the tension between ruin and renewal, proposing art as a space for listening, transformation, and reconfiguration.
"Glimmers, feathers and staring skies" explores grief and migration through the hummingbird, weaving personal loss, Costa Rican folk belief, and scientific imagery to question how humans relate to, classify, and care for more-than-human bodies.
Portrait of the artist.
Works
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Glimmers, Feathers and Staring Skies, 2026. Archival Pigment Print, Dimensions Vary
Kranj Photo Festival, Kokra Canyon and River, Kranj, Slovenia
Kranj Photo Festival, Kokra Canyon and River, Kranj, Slovenia
Kranj Photo Festival, Kokra Canyon and River, Kranj, Slovenia
The photographer in conversation.
About the Artist
Joel Jimenez Jara is a contemporary artist and filmmaker working with photography, film, archives, and installation to explore memory, landscape, and power.
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