Profile
I am Estepalia, a pseudonym where Lía Navarro merges with the register of the steppe, of Patagonia, of Comodoro Rivadavia, of Km5. Of space as a permanent discovery and affective appropriation. Being Patagonian as a process. Becoming Patagonian.
I am an architect, university teacher, visual artist. With active participation in civil society organisations related to natural and historical heritage. In my work the sketch is an end in itself (not the provisional that precedes the work) where I cannot do without the line as a disciplinary identity assumed from architecture, while watercolour offers me the fleeting, the spontaneous, the transparencies and the surprise.
The sketch is thus an adventure on paper and beyond, as I look at and discover the city. The sketches are also personal records where line and watercolour are just one language among others, such as words, memory, testimony, research. Finally, the sketch also becomes a claim that 'makes visible' the naturalised and ignored, and is a vehicle for activating processes of valuation of different forms of heritage (historical, architectural, industrial, natural). Thus, Heritage is present. I do not rescue what was. With my watercolours, I celebrate what is today.
I have had one-person and group exhibitions, I have been invited to participate in books, magazines, documentaries, etc. I have given workshops on 'Sketchwalks' or heritage sketching tours.
• Art Workshop 'Plano Profundo' by Andrés Latorre from February 2021 to the present.
• Individual Creation Grant 2021 from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes, for an Illustrated Report on the Central Workshops of YPF in Comodoro Rivadavia.
• Virtual Exhibition of the cycle 'Mujeres que investigan mundos petroleros' of the Museo Nacional del petróleo, December 2021.
• One-person exhibition at Centro Cultural Rada Tilly, 'La ciudad como Colección', 18/11 to 4/12 2022, Rada Tilly.
• Watercolour, drawing and Chinese ink workshop, by Rubén Grau, UNA, April 2023.
• Presentation of the documentary series 'Un País dentro de un País', Canal Encuentro, July 2023.
• Diploma in Assembly of Exhibition Spaces, UNA, April 2023
• Direction of the Extension Project (UNPSJB) 'Paisaje Patrimonial de Km5, a través de los sketchwalks' (Heritage Landscape of Km5, through sketchwalks), 2023.
