f.o.c.a

“I was invited to exhibit my performative encounters with orphan baby seals. The poetic gesture of feeding orphan baby seals requires from me to truly transform from within in order to touch the heart of the moment. The process of these transformations then spill into my drawings practice and sculptures in the shape of holistic vision and a deeper understanding of how energy changes shape.”

WALL TEXT:

F.O.C.A is an artistic foundation located in Punta Colorada Uruguay, where the artist currently lives and works. It is aimed at exploring unpredictable and emotional ways of transforming through contemplation. While F.O.C.A is formal Foundation (that will open it’s doors to the public in 2026) it’s heart essence simultaneously serves as a medium to explore the unknown from within the unknown and an invitation to transcend language in order to communicate with a non-human universe, indivisible and self-regulated. The foundation is an Art Work itself.

In 2023, Eduardo Navarro approached animal shelter SOS Rescate Fauna Marina located in Punta Colorada, Uruguay, offering to feed the orphaned baby sea lions in a sea lion suit in an attempt to erase boundaries and explore the idiosyncrasies and anecdotes of the ocean. For him, this was an opportunity to explore “affectionate contemplation,” which requires one to dissolve oneself in what is being contemplated, emphasizing the indivisibility of everything – no hierarchies, no roles, no separation.

The ocean became an example of such unity, an environment where everything is always in contact. By transforming into a sea lion and becoming a substitute male-mother for the orphaned baby seals he assumed the role of a caregiver in an attempt to transcend the separation between the species. Feeding them became a way of playing. For the artist playing is a universal language that allows intuition to become a ball you pass around. If nothing else, he hopes, his action will help these orphans sea lions get back into the ocean with a story to tell other sea creatures, emphasizing fantastical thinking as a way to pierce rational limitations. In its mission of bringing the oceanic perspective of the world to the surface and offering it as a possible foundation for future coexistence, F.O.C.A. turns our attention to the knowledge at the bottom of the sea, calls for emotional empathy, and shows how to achieve it through affectionate contemplation – becoming one with the object of contemplation, while becoming the world itself. F.O.C.A. is an amphibious artistic foundation that swim in all directions while generating drawings, encounters, possibility’s, compassion, text commissions, activities, and so on. Some created by the artist himself and some by his fellow colleagues in the near future.

“Oceanic Altar” Cardboard seal. 10 meters by 6 meters high and 3 wide. Each of the 16 drawings exhibited on the “Oceanic Altar”measure 55 cm by 77 cm. They are made with back ink on paper and charcoal pastel. “The origin of the Origin of all transformation” This group of 18 drawings measure 110 cm by 77 cm and are painted with black ink on paper. They were installed with magnets creating 3 pyramids. These  ink drawings transform one into each other and share a pattern painted on the wall that allows them to connect through dotted lines.