Collection Lines
"There is only one path, there are no escape routes." Norman Bethune.
In astronomy, the nadir is the point on the celestial sphere directly below the observer. By extension, it is also used to refer to the lowest point or the moment of greatest adversity in a process.
In literature, the nadir is the moment when the hero reaches the lowest point morally.
With this collection, Cherry Massia outlines one more chapter in its work, developing, on this occasion, the concepts of escape and self-destruction.
Nadir takes us to a dead centre. There is no up or down. After exploring the idea that there is always a hint of darkness in the light, or a point of light in the darkness, through this third collection we enter a flat and dark path. A flight to an uncertain place, where the heroine slowly destroys herself.
"Nadir" arises from the need to explore the reality of suicide, schizophrenia and the impact that mental illnesses generate on the individual who suffers them and by extension, on their social environment.
The collection explores the impact generated by experiencing these types of situations and the trail of silence that is transmitted from generation to generation, making them a taboo subject even within the family itself.
The colour range is strongly influenced by Art Brut, an artistic movement that often reflects extreme mental states and refers especially to the artistic manifestations created by people suffering from some type of mental illness.
When setting the aesthetic context of the collection, references are taken from rural Andalusia in the mid-1930s, specifically from an event that happened in 1937.
The massacre on the Malaga-Almeria road, popularly known as La Desbandá, was an attack on civilians that occurred during the Spanish Civil War, after Franco's troops entered Malaga.
The road was flooded with refugees fleeing the horror of war, weighed down by the uncertainty of their destinies and the hope of saving their lives. These exiles were attacked by sea and air, thus resulting in one of the worst and little known episodes in the entire conflict.
This episode has been chosen as an aesthetic framework, since the idea of a tormented path generates an obvious analogy with the theme evoked by the collection. Fleeing from horror, walking among chaos and reaching a desert destination, where death may just be awaiting you. This allows us to imagine what the process must be like for a sick individual who reaches the point where they consider their own end.
There are vast similarities. The road as the only way out and as a process of self-destruction, generational silence, taboo, loss.