I told many lame lies when I was in high school. Fabricated stories about the most mundane things: having girlfriends, going on vacations--silly, childish fabrications. But I was so afraid of being outed. In that fear, I still manage to have endless crushes, feel overwhelmed with longing, and fall in love. High school was strange because I was simultaneously terrified of and enamored with the experience.
School-like environments can foster many behaviors, some outrageous or simple and silly, and others that are just incredibly intense. Especially for a boy, a queer boy, in an all-boys Catholic school.
While revisiting the scenes and actions etched deep in my memory, I endeavored to recreate and gain a deeper understanding of the traditional "boys will be boys" narrative. Through the act of recreation, I found myself contemplating the whirlwind of conflicting emotions I experienced in those moments. Some were homoerotic, while others were entangled in the complexities of power dynamics, aesthetics, and social interactions--complex human behaviors within all-male settings.
Interestingly, these behaviors--spanning from petty violence and random humiliation to intense camaraderie and bonding--shift in meaning with the context of each memory. Take, for instance, the crucial differences between bullying, hazing, and teasing. Some actions involved in these are theoretically identical; however, among boys, bullying aims to shun or reject, whereas hazing employs similar behaviors but strives for acceptance and belonging, marked by complicity and consent. It is about exhibition, performance, celebration, a yearning for contact, and a quest for belonging. Within a heteronormative, all-boys environment, hazing was often something I found myself desiring.
Over the years after my time in school I held onto those teenage uniforms and now with them created images that I hope will provide insight--not just into my trauma but to tell a story about what happens there, what I saw, and how it felt. This photographic recreation was meticulous. I looked through old photos, re read journals, made lists (I keep many lists) of moments and memories from what I had witnessed. I photographed myself throughout Bogotá, especially in the neighborhood where I grew up, and reenacted those transgressive school moments as faithfully as possible.
The themes of bullying, boyhood, and masculinity are deeply embedded in our society. They shape our worldview and influence my work. After overcoming seven years of depression that was my adolescence, I embarked on a performance journey over 18 months. I felt to enter adulthood in som health I needed to change--who I am, who I was. I decided to confront some demons and memories.
This book compiles the self-portraits I captured over the course of 18 months, wherein I present myself--disguised as my past--in these vulnerable, exhibitionist, and humiliating poses for the world to see. Within these pages, I can detail my journey and share the images that brought me some catharsis. Perhaps, in turn, they will offer you insight--not necessarily into who I am, but into what boys, schools and lies are.
Santiago Andrea Arciniegas Gómez is a visual artist from Bogota, who, as a photographer, employs his own body to delve into the essence and peculiarities of self-exposure, transgressive behavior, adolescence, and memory.
Over the past few years, his work has concentrated on producing a series of portraits that recall moments from a bygone era--moments often overlooked, yet pivotal in the transition to adulthood. Raised in a traditional Colombian Catholic environment, his works are inhabited by a host of characters drawn from lust and dreams. The aesthetic inspiration for his images comes from portraiture found in postmodern and contemporary contexts. It's noteworthy that he draws inspiration by collecting and curating content produced by society, which permeates the online landscape, and then infuses this inspiration into his final images.
His work addresses themes of loneliness, masculinity, and privilege. It's about revenge, regrets, and, most importantly, the human need to define oneself. It's not about fantasizing; it's about constructing fantasies-- real world fantasies but impossible for some, that are meant to appear spontaneous and unconsidered, resonating with Roland Barthes's "punctum" theory, which centers on the accidental: things become alluring because of what is inadvertently revealed, finding beauty in the unexpected.
"I want to write about this, draw about this, photograph this, record this and fake this," he declares. The actions in his work offer just a glimpse of the facets of human nature he has become fixated on--where the artist saw something of value and now endeavors to recreate it, both for himself and for others to witness.
