Andi Schmied and Sofia Valiente are both interested in communities and social spaces, but have very individual approaches to documentation and intervention. And is concerned with architectural and urban spaces, whereas Sofia's work depicts human faces and relationships.
Jing Jin City and Miracle Village are new photographic projects by two young contemporary
artists, Andi Schmied and Sofia Valiente, which we are thrilled to present concurrently in a
unique exhibition in January 2015.
Andi Schmied and Sofia Valiente are both interested in communities and social spaces, but have very
individual approaches to documentation and intervention. Andi is concerned with architectural and urban
spaces, whereas Sofia’s work depicts human faces and relationships. The artists each spent time living in
the places they photographed. These procedural and artistic comparisons are particularly apparent and
compelling when the projects are viewed together.
Andi Schmied’s Jing Jin City comprises photographs of Jing Jin, which is situated about an hour’s drive from
Beijing. The city is home to a development of 3,000 luxury villas, alongside a Hyatt Regency hotel, golf
courses, entertainment complexes and the other usual trappings of a wealthy suburban town. The villas
form part of an initiative by the local district government, which envisioned Jing Jin as a “new city” built to
embody ideals of environmental sustainability as well as material comfort.
Construction began in 2002, but the majority of the properties remain uninhabited. Andi occupied a
number of these empty buildings in January and September 2014. She created sculptural and architectural
installations in the spaces, which she then photographed. In one photograph, window panes are balanced
against each other in pyramid-like structures around a bare concrete room. In another intervention, Andi
took cut grass from the front lawn of one of the houses and brought it into the living room, carpeting the
cold floor with bristly yellow-green foliage.
Our Jing Jin City exhibition will show a selection of Andi’s photographs alongside a glossy catalogue
produced by the district government, which portrays lavishly furnished family homes and a thriving
community.
Andi’s project will be presented in dialogue with Sofia Valiente’s Miracle Village. The small community of
Miracle Village is located on the outskirts of a rural town in an impoverished area of Palm Beach County,
Florida. It is currently home to over 100 sex offenders, who for legislative reasons have been unable to find
housing elsewhere. The law obliges offenders to live a minimum distance of at least 1,000 feet from any
place where children congregate, such as schools or bus stops. In practice, this is very difficult to comply
with, and many of these individuals struggle to find a place to live and to re-establish themselves in society.
The village was founded by a Christian ministry and seeks to help offenders who have no place else to go.
The range of crimes committed varies - from serious offenses to consensual teenage relationships that had
an age gap. The men are mixed in age, from various ethnic backgrounds, and they are all coming to terms
with living with the permanence of the “sex offender” label.
Over the course of a year, Sofia Valiente befriended, lived among and photographed the residents of
Miracle Village who have shared their stories of estrangement, solitude and rehabilitation with her. Her
work gives insight into what life is like in a community of deeply alienated individuals. A book of Sofia’s
Miracle Village photographs was published by Fabrica in 2014. This publication also includes handwritten
letters and testimony from village inhabitants, which provides vital context for the photographs.
Jing Jin City and Miracle Village are remarkable projects by two innovative young artists who are investigating
the margins of society.
Andi Schmied trained at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture, and spatial concerns infuse her work, which
incorporates video, photography, installation and sculpture. Her interest in psychogeography and urbanism is
manifested in her Jing Jin City project. She was recently awarded a residency at OUTPOST in Norwich.
She is based in Budapest, Hungary.
Sofia Valiente is a fine art graduate from Florida International University in Miami, Florida. She recently
completed a one-year scholarship at Fabrica in Treviso, Italy where she developed her Miracle Village project
under Fabrica’s Editorial Area, which investigates social and cultural changes through long-term journalistic
projects. She is based in Florida, USA.
Image: Sofia Valiente, “Matt”, 2013
For further information about our exhibition please email:
mail@danielblau.com
Opening: Thursday January 15, 2015, 6-8pm
Daniel Blau
51 Hoxton Square
London
Tuesday - Friday, 11am - 6pm