Juan Francisco Rodríguez
DEW PORTAL

2022 — 2024
Existing artwork

Juan Francisco Rodríguez is a Colombian filmmaker and artist. He explores and questions images and narratives that seek an enchantment of the world; an affective and critical intertwining with the environment. His work combines object-based media with knowledge of ecology, magic and optics, resulting in experiments that run along the edges of documentary film, expanded photography and light art.

The installation is inspired by the optical qualities of dewdrops in nature. Due to their spherical and translucent nature, dewdrops are small lenses that can bundle, focus and project light rays and reflect and reproduce images. In this sense, the artist sees each dewdrop as a cinematographic manifestation, a kind of image collection and projection of the surrounding world. In the installation, a crystal ball takes on the function of a dewdrop. It lies on a light table and beneath it is a slide showing a reflection of the sun on an overgrown swamp pond. The installation makes us aware of the extent to which light and optics determine the image we form of the world.