Linet Sanchez

Gimme Shelter: The Art of Linet Sánchez

Cuban artist Linet Sánchez is an architect of the subconscious. Just as Carl Jung hypothesized that the “psyche is real,”[1] Sánchez builds meticulously-designed miniature interiors as surrogates for her own psyche, liminal spaces that act as both imagined rooms and literal constructs of the mind—the dwellings of memory. In his book The Poetics of Space, published in 1959, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard writes that “the unconscious is housed,”[2] suggesting that memories are—and should be—affixed to a metaphorical space, an interior, a series of rooms inhabiting the mind. This symbolism engineers a structured modality for remembering—and for compartmentalizing—those series of events that, when strung together, create a life. 

“A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability,”[3] explains Bachelard. This psychological concept of architecting intimate spaces to hold both real and imagined remnants of our former selves is the basis of Sánchez’s artistic process, wherein she painstakingly (re)constructs physical shells and empty, minimalist spaces as deserted stages, primed for poetic reenactments of her own history.

“All these spaces are inspired by memories—personal memories, but also memories that I'm not very sure about,” Sánchez says. She believes her work represents “a mix of memories and imagination, or desires or feelings about something that happened in the past.”[4] Born in Havana in 1989, Sánchez studied painting and also trained as a ballerina—perhaps the most exacting and disciplined of all the performing arts. This history is evident in her work; the allegorical scenes she creates display an acute attention to detail—and dramaturgy—that reveal the artist’s past life. 

“I've been using the theater a lot in my work—things related to plays or to cinematography,” she says. “That comes from my studies in classical ballet, and my experience in a theater as both a viewer and as a dancer…memories of that time inspire my work in terms of the light I use and the places I create—it’s the architecture of the theater.”[5]

In her exhibition at Thomas Nickles Gallery, entitled I Remember this Room, Sánchez combines imagery of inaccessible memories—manifested by stand-alone, room-sized crates with no obvious entrance—with images of eerily beautiful interiors, spiraling staircases and seductive, yet deserted, parlors. Each image has been whitewashed, inviting the viewer to read these rooms through a personal lens. Are they scenes of potential, to be filled by the characters, colors and gestures of human imagination? Or are they sites of grief so profound that they were either completely erased or locked behind an impenetrable exterior? Both scenarios can be true, like heads and tails of a coin toss. This inherent duality also reflects the integration of the unconscious and conscious, which Jung argued constitutes “the self.” 

Grief exists in tandem with trauma—along the messy continuum of human experience and emotional response. As the world begins to process the residual effects of the global pandemic, which, for many, has now receded into (very recent) memory, the nature of collective grief and shared trauma is being urgently reassessed in real time. 

One could argue that, in recent years, the notion of trauma has become a kind of catch-all for any past event that refuses tidy categorization, and thus threatens the structural integrity of one’s entire identity—like an infestation that burrows into the very foundation of our being(s) and, if left untreated, could result in the whole place being condemned.

Trauma will not be confined to a single memory—it seeps out of those mental safes where we attempt to bury it and runs amok across our personal narratives, with no deference for the distinction between past, present and future. Trauma, as we’ve learned, transcends generations, like a phantom oil spill steadily engulfing its immediate environment, with toxic effects that could lay dormant for years, before finally poisoning the present. 

The natural response to trauma, or to any existential threat, is to seek shelter. 

The maquettes and interiors that Sánchez creates offer refuge—a shelter for the psyche. These spaces appear both structurally sound and utterly pristine. A Buddhist ethos permeates each of Sánchez’s images, in her poetic depiction of ascetic, sacred emptiness. Her work functions as a kind of psychological self-portrait, the elements of which can be extrapolated to resonate beyond her individual history, reflecting a more universal human condition.

“My work is about how we retain things we leave, or how we feel about what we leave and what we remember,” she says. “The emptiness in these spaces is related to that feeling of being alone.” [6]

In her work Untitled (7) a deserted light-filled atrium casts a shadowy lattice across the ground. The existence of a door injects the scene with a dream-like sense of possibility—the potential for discovery. Without the door, the composition would feel completely different, implying imprisonment, or solitary confinement. 

Sánchez describes herself as introspective, a quality implying solitude. “When you interpret reality by trying to remember, you are alone in your own mind, with your senses,” she explains. “That act is very lonely for me because no one can be with you inside your mind. And no one can share the same memory of one moment.” [7]

Trauma also plays tricks on our memory, turning us into unreliable narrators. And yet, even the most innocent or joyful of memories often become fictionalized in our own recounting. Bachelard describes this as the “theater of the past which is constituted by memory.” [8]

“I hope my work can be like a middle space,” Sánchez says. “A space between me and the viewer…like a place where the viewer can put their own memories or their own desires or their own ways of interacting with the spaces I’ve built.”[9] By excavating her own past to construct these interior worlds, Sánchez offers the viewer an interpretation of shelter—both internally and externally—inviting us to fill each empty room with our own stories, buried secrets, persistent hopes and eternal longing. 

• Emilie Trice

All images courtesy the artist and Thomas Nickles Project.

Footnotes:
1. Carl Jung, Collected Works 11, paragraph 757.
2. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, pg 32.
3. Ibid, pg. 38. 
4. Interview with Linet Sánchez, April 3, 2023.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8.  Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, pg 30.
9. Interview with Linet Sánchez, April 3, 2023.