A new work by Paloma Polo is exhibited these days in Madrid, as part of the research project that she has been developing over the expeditions of the colonial era. Apparent position is part of the Eyes of Women Festival (MAV) and is related to the link between scientific knowledge and imperialist expansion that led out of the great European powers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, giving rise to new approaches and ideas that challenge these processes.

The exhibition is composed of three parts. A 16 mm film transferred to digital video - Remote Action –, a series of 14 photographs on glass - Simultaneity is not an invariably concept – and a book entitled Through cloud. Hopeful that presents texts, published by the artist, as results of collaboration with leading scientists and historians of academic centers in Portugal, England, USA and Brazil.

Polo has focused for the occasion in the journey of Sir Arthur Eddington to the African island of Principe in 1919. Renowned British astrophysicist moved to the former Portuguese colony of Guinea Gulf to observe a solar eclipse, with experimental purpose of verifying the General Theory of Relativity by Albert Einstein, under cover of darkness provided by this celestial phenomenon. The starting point of this trip is the Rock Sundy plantation on the island of Principe, where Polo has developed his film.

In both video and photographs, we find some of the key elements that go unnoticed to the historiography on the interrelationship of science, history and power. The artist reveals how, while the policies of the European scientific expeditions have been studied in many historical essays, the broader policy of European colonialism in this connection has become much less visible. On the other hand, his work explores the relationship and similarity found between the methodologies of scientific and historiographical practice. Until 23 April at the Sabatini Building in the Reina Sofia Museum. Alejandro Martinez         

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