Christto & Andrew

Christian Sánchez Díaz, 1985 San Juan, Puerto Rico Andrew Jay Weir, 1987 Johannesburg, South Africa

Christto & Andrew are a duo of Visual Artists currently living and working between Doha, Qatar and Copenhagen, Denmark.

As if they were pieces of a puzzle, their images merge together to show through the sedimentation of symbols the effects of history, politics, economics and popular culture in which contemporary society is built, specifically in the Arabian region. Thus, each object or character that is portrayed in their photographs become symbolic reflections of these stratifications found in Qatari society. They use Qatar as an example, exaggerating its colors and compositions; with a particular humor they point out the constant development and the malleable state of transformation in which the country finds itself. In the same way, objects rescued from construction sites are transformed into cement molds and workers into models that through photography subvert notions of value, commodification and occupation. As a result, each object or character within their photographs become symbolic reflections of these stratifications found in Qatari society. Christto and Andrew therefore do not criticize, but rather point to the two parallel dialogues, the local and the outsider, that together weave this complex web of cultures and subcultures evident in most Gulf and MENA contexts. Christto and Andrew's artistic practice evolves as a symbiotic process strengthened by a cross-pollination of their different backgrounds.

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