Alinka Echeverría, winner of the 2015 BMW Residency at the Musée Nicéphore Niépce, is working on a project that examines photography from the reproduction of the image to its dissemination, drawing inspiration from Nicéphore Niépce and his founding act.

Interested in the depiction of women in the history of art and photography, she forges historical, technical and philosophical links between the museum’s collections and ceramics.

Using the vase as a symbol of femininity and a vector of mythological allegories, she examines how various image reproduction techniques have shaped the ways women are seen.

‘From its inception, photography’s function has been to capture and reproduce the world without limits. Nicéphore Niépce’s invention gave unprecedented impetus to the quest for accumulating archives.

‘Alinka Echeverría uses the clay pot, a legacy of the Neolithic Age, to renew the photographic and artistic discourse on our fascination with accumulation. Covering vases with photographic images, she combines two storage techniques and suggests continuity between ancient granaries and contemporary databanks.

‘The need of the merchant class to spread its ideals made photography the best tool not only to preserve elements of reality, but also to interpret and disseminate them.

‘Ms. Echeverría displays ironclad logic in a few images and objects. The relationship that photography and its techniques maintain with decorative objects does not escape the stupefying observation of loss and domination.’

François Cheval, Head Curator of the Musée Nicéphore Niépce.