Malaise: a journey through the Gothic fictions of Daniela Edburg

Abstract

This article examines how Mexican artist Daniela Edburg has been using Gothic idioms to raise awareness of both personal and environmental ailments. For over two decades, Edburg has combined digital photography and textiles to create fictional settings in which women are depicted in domestic spaces or natural landscapes in bizarre situations. Some of her characters are attacked by monsters, while others appear in a state of escapism, and many have encounters with death or disease. In this paper, I examine the connections between Edburg’s art and Gothic tropes including the uncanny, the return of the dead, madness and disease, intrusions into domestic space, the clash of old and new, and the yearning for reconnection with nature. The text begins with an analysis of her most recent project, Malaise, which alludes to Frankenstein and crystallizes core concerns that have persisted throughout her career. Later, I examine prior series by the artist to demonstrate how gothic traits have always been present in Edburg’s work. Using a gothic style, the artist has constantly reflected on how humans relate to the natural world through the artificial, as well as the consequences of this attitude toward life, which has led us to a dystopian future.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Halberstam, Skin Shows.

2. Nardin, “A Meeting on the Mer de Glace,” 441.

3. Diaz, “Representación del cuerpo humano en la serie fotográfica Drop Dead Gorgeous, de Daniela Edburg,” 78–82; and Mercado “Lo grotesco en la serie fotográfica Remains of the day de Daniela Edburg.”

4. Macías Osorno, “Momentos de indulgencia.”

5. Becker, Gothic Forms of Feminine Fictions, 256.

6. Williams “Making Monsters.”

7. Interview with Daniela Edburg Conducted by the Author, 20 August 2020.

8. Ibid.

9. Oxford Dictionary.

10. Spooner, Contemporary Gothic, 8.

11. Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 7.

12. Ibid, 36.

13. Spooner, Contemporary Gothic, 3.

14. Goddu, Gothic America, 94.

15. Tolentino, “Drop Dead Gorgeous.”

16. Macías Osorno, “Momentos de indulgencia,” 7.

17. Becker, Gothic Forms of Feminine Fictions, 255.

18. Gronlund, “Return of the Gothic.”

19. Halberstam, “Parasites and Perverts: An Introduction to Gothic Monstrosity,” 150.

20. ‘On Death’ Poems by John Keats (1795–1821) http://keats-poems.com/on-death/.

21. Villegas Mercado, “Lo grotesco en la serie fotográfica Remains of the Day de Daniela Edburg.”

22. See note 18 above.

23. David and Byron, The Gothic, 116–17.

24. Interview with Daniela Edburg conducted by the author, 20 August 2020.

25. Halberstam, “Parasites and Perverts,” 164.

26. See note 24 above.

27. Berdan, “Caspar David Friedrich and the 20th Century.”

28. Ingebretsen, At stake, 2.

29. Hammond, “Monsters of Modernity,” 183.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claudia Arozqueta

Claudia Arozqueta is a historian, curator, and researcher that holds PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Arozqueta’s schorlarly practice has an interest in the transdisciplinary intersections of art, science, nature, and technology. She has published in various international art magazines and journals including Leonardo, Artnodes, Artforum, e-flux Criticism, etc. As a curator she has organized several exhibitions for international organisations in South America, North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.