contact: ali santana 94 (at) gmail . com
hi,
i’m ali
i make lots of different things but mostly i make observations.
welcome to this little space that i curate.
thanks for checking it out.
tech feels chunky and awkward and i like holding things so much that it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around what’s really going on “here.” but this computer that im typing on is also a kind of miraculous thing. im sitting here now in San Francisco, California. while you are sitting, standing, walking(?) reading this somewhere else in the world.
so i use this space as a digital memory box of sorts. i love the way this container can hold so many things i’ve made and parts of me that have existed and may not even exist anymore.
creating things reminds me that im human. making art helps me make sense of my short time on earth especially when the time feels long. ever since i was a kid i’ve struggled to make sense of the relationship between the intangible and tangible. for the past decade my creative practice has been mostly about where spirit meets body – exploring that holy estuary where our souls take shape.
but isn’t that what all art is? the manifestation of things beyond the physical realm? brain wiggles transformed into language, wire twisted into figures, feelings scribbled on paper.
we all communicate through creation whether we think of ourselves as creators or not.
and how beautiful it is to see each other’s creations.
on capitalization: ali santana
i stopped capitalizing the A in my name when i began to consider my name as something more like a description, just a finger pointing at the thing, rather than some higher, proper thing. brown hair, artist, sibling, partner, loyal, caregiver, friend, lover, illustrator, listener, etcetera … the tradition of artists not capitalizing their names is seen in many mediums, writers, painters, whole languages without capitalization. i could capitalize my sentences, but that is just a consistency choice at this point.
ali as in the whole thing that we call “ali”
table as in the whole thing that we call “table”
where we eat, where we share, where we sit next to each other,
where we listen, where we hear, where we take turns
where we savor
where we rest
Ali as in Table
(2023)
ali w. santana 