Encounters: Cova Macà ­as

About

Cova Macà ­as' practice focuses on young people, addressing how they construct their identity and how they present themselves. For the last six years she has made videos that intimately explore this territory, creating compelling portraits of her subjects and collaborators. Challenging the conventions of representation, these works often blur the line between documentary and fiction. The exhibition at Modern Art Oxford presents three works, centering on her most recent piece, La révolte intime (The intimate revolt), 2009. Made with young inhabitants of Paris' 19th district, it is part biography of the protagonists and part social documentary about this ethnically and culturally diverse area. Each of Macà ­as' videos is preceded by an extensive period of research in which she gets to know young people from a particular area. Engaging them in various exercises, she experiments with ways to create projects in real time. ‘During the work process I seek to find the defining codes, systems of approach and representation for each participant by means of dialogue, negotiation, agreement and complicity between both parties.' The results are captivating insights into the lives of young people today, as much a creation of the artist as a collaboration with the subjects who have invested themselves in the work.