Paola Fernanda’s exhibition Liminal Threads presents analogue black-and-white 16mm film projections alongside printed images created from the films. The works are experimental explorations of filmed performances featuring four generations of women in her family. The primary material she works with is her own hair, which acts as a connective thread between the generations and as a medium for creating images using the photogram technique. Working with analogue film allows her to manipulate hair as though it were celluloid, imbuing it with an uncanny nature.

In her practice, Paola Fernanda intertwines personal and collective narratives rooted in memory, identity, and embodiment. In this exhibition, she continues to explore the reconstruction of the past and her connection to familial roots. The artist is particularly interested in what she calls transnational objects—elements that symbolically reconnect her to her homeland. In recent years, she has begun to build a narrative around the role of women in her family and wider communities in broader surroundings, both in Colombia and Finland, examining their influence on her life and on the present.

The exhibition invites viewers to engage with themes of intergenerational connection, memory, distance, and the poetics of the body. Hair serves as both a metaphorical and material connector, binding and linking past and present, memory and imagination. Through experimental analogue processes, the work transforms familiar elements into uncanny and poetic visual forms, creating a space where intimacy, identity, and memory can be experienced collectively and ritualistically.

The works in the exhibition were developed during Paola Fernanda’s recent residency at the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, supported by the Saastamoinen Foundation and Uniarts. The project has served as a living and evolving connection with her family despite physical distance, allowing these personal and intergenerational histories to unfold through the lens of experimental film and photographic practice.

Paola Fernanda (b. 1992, Bogota, Colombia) is a Colombian visual artist and experimental filmmaker based in Finland since 2013. She works with analogue film, photography, installation, and performance. Her practice intertwines personal and collective narratives rooted in memory, identity, feminist perspectives, and embodiment. Recurring themes in her work include intergenerational relations, cultural displacement, and the poetics of the body. She holds a BA and MA from the University of the Arts Helsinki, and a BA in Visual Arts from Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Colombia. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including Penumbra Foundation, New York City (2025); Forum Box, Helsinki (2024), DocLisboa International Film Festival, Portugal (2023); CICA Museum, South Korea (2022); and Cultural Centre Gabriel García Márquez, Bogotá (2022). Paola Fernanda has recently participated in residencies at LIFT, Toronto (2024/5); Saari Residence, Finland (2023); and Residency Unlimited, New York (2023). paolafernanda.com

Paola Fernanda
Liminal Threads
3.–26.10.2025
Hippolyte Studio

image: Paola Fernanda, Liminal Threads, 2025