Student: Nora Arana-Alzola

School: Lenoir-Rhyne University

Year/Major: Junior/Studio Art

Course: ART 305 - Digital Photography II, Spring 2026

Assignment: Self Guided Final Project

Concept: For their final project, students were tasked with creating a concept that had to relate or tie into one of the processes we explored throughout the semester. Of her concept, Nora, an international student from Spain, said: "This project originates from a personal experience related to the way I understand and read the world. I have always had difficulty reading text written in the Latin alphabet, which has made my relationship with written language complex, slow, and at times frustrating. However, this difficulty has led me to develop another way of understanding reality: through the visual. Instead of reading words, I read forms, structures, light, and space. This way of perception has become the foundation of my artistic practice. Since childhood, I have been deeply connected to visual language. I grew up in an environment where art was part of everyday life, surrounded by sculptures, paintings, and constant creative processes. Among all these influences, the work of Jorge Oteiza has played a fundamental role. His presence in my home was not only physical, but also conceptual: his way of understanding emptiness, composition, and space was already part of my gaze even before I became consciously aware of it. In this project, I work with architectural structures, especially ceilings, which I perceive as spaces filled with memory, calm, and a sense of belonging. These places function for me as a silent language that I can read effortlessly. Through a handmade pinhole camera, I produce images that respond to a slow, experimental, and imperfect process. This method does not seek total control, but rather opens space for intuition and discovery. The outcome materializes in a sculpture inspired by Oteiza, where I intervene on its surfaces by incorporating my images. Inside the piece, I place the positives: that which is visible, what the eye can recognize. On the exterior, I place the negatives: images that refer to what is not immediately visible, to other forms of perception that exist beyond the norm. This duality between interior and exterior reflects my own experience: a way of showing that within what appears stable, there are multiple ways of seeing and understanding. The use of the negative is not only a formal decision, but also a conceptual one. It represents what is usually left out of conventional reading, yet is essential to me. In this way, the sculpture becomes an active space where emptiness, image, and perception enter into dialogue. This project is not only about architecture or image, but also about identity, memory, and perception. It is a way of reclaiming a reading of the world that does not rely on words, but on visual, emotional, and sensory experience. In this sense, my work aligns with Oteiza’s thinking, understanding art as a process of exploration where emptiness is not absence, but a space where something can happen."