Sofia Dona

Sofia Dona is an artist and architect. Her work, positioned between architecture and art, deals with social, economic and political issues in an interdisciplinary way through site-specific practice. Whether focusing on the border region between Mexico and the US, on various strategies of eviction, or on historically symbolic architectural elements of power, Dona creates installations and video works that distort established notions of everyday life. Her works illuminate a series of situations and narratives, viewing them from a different perspective to reveal hidden, forgotten or unnoticed elements. An important part of her artistic practice is the generation of a defamiliarising effect that results in works that are as revealing as they are poetic. Acts such as constructing a replica of a border mountain range out of sand, extending a balcony, moving a streetlight, and enlarging a doorway transform familiar objects into unexpected narrative elements. Through processes of defamiliarisation, estrangement, and ostranenie, the transformed artifacts become capable of revealing stories and meanings, reproducing memories and raising awareness, through the exceptional ordinariness of simulation.

Sofia Dona is a participant of the Onassis AiR Tailor-made Residencies for 2023-24.