New Neighbors

New Neighbors | Statement I felt the challenge that implies, as an immigrant or newcomer, to live in a new country or move into a new city. I discovered that is a common thing for most people, specially immigrants, get used to be ready to move to a new place quite often. These visual references are all about the relationship we develop with â??or against- the places we live in. Itâ??s all about real life, where candid everyday clutter we produce becomes ephemeral. Itâ??s about how exposed we feel even in our own place and how fragile we are; how can we read some virtues and failures throughout the appearance of one single temporary room. This project is a mirror, a personal projection, since most of them are either immigrants â??like meâ?? or people temporally living as students, embryonic families or couples, most of them in a provisional housing or even in a short-term relationship or loneliness. I called them â??my neighborsâ?? even though they arenâ??t for real.

Coco Martin is an architect and a photographer. Since 1991, Martin's work was exhibited at the First Biennial of Photography of Puerto Rico (1998), Second Biennial of Lima, Peru (2000) and at the Biennial of Photography of Quito, Ecuador (2001) and at the Organization of American States Museum in Washington, D.C. (2008). Additionally his work has been exhibited and published in Peru, USA, Chile, Spain and throughout Latin America such as El Salvador and Argentina and he have had numerous group exhibitions. Martin's art work has been recognized with the Exhibit Grant Award from the Council on the Arts for Staten Island, New York, and selected to perform at the Annual Juried Exhibition at Staten Island Museum both in 2005. His work has been published at different art magazines such as ARTMOTIV (Lima, Peru), NYARTS Magazine (NY, USA), GATOPARDO Magazine (Colombia), Revista HELIO, (Lima, Peru) and LOCUS Magazine (Baltimore, USA). He has participated at the 2005 Loisaida Cortos Latino Film Festival in NY and in the AELLA FotoLatina �  Paris in 2006. His latest solo show entitled -New Neighbors- was held in La Galeria (Lima, Peru) in August, 2010 and is now a traveling exhibition. Also in 2010 his work has been selected to participate in PERUVIAN ART NOW, an group exhibition at the Isabel Aninat Gallery in Santiago de Chile. This 2011, his work has been selected to be part of New Directions 2011 | Moments of Being at Wall Space Gallery Santa Barbara in California, curated by David Bram (Fraction Magazine Editor). After 8 years as a professor of photography in a private School of Visual Arts in Lima Coco now lives and works in New York City.