30 Seconds of Weightlessness is the title of the exhibition presented by Artmedia Gallery, featuring a selection from the photographic project of the same title created by Adriana Estivill between 2017 and 2025 together with a video. We are very proud to display this work in our space, as Estivill’s presence in the Miami art scene enriches the city’s artistic and photographic practices.

Estivill makes both a reflective and instinctive use of the camera as a tool of visual production. It is reflective insofar as her well-considered relationship with photography seems to respond to a questioning of the medium’s conventional uses. Here, she is not concerned with describing, documenting, or narrating with the camera. The instinctive dimension, on the other hand, manifests itself in her agile, dynamic, versatile, and subjective approach to recording the visible world.

Along this path, Estivill explores the discursive and artistic possibilities of the complex relationship with photography on which 30 Seconds of Weightlessness relies. To do so, she turns to the most historically established ways of producing and presenting images in this medium: the direct photographic capture of subjects, later processed and printed in black and white.

Through an aesthetic of deep blacks and rich gray tones, she employs additional procedures that place the photographic representation under tension, giving rise to veils, blurs, and overlays. At this point, it should be clarified that technical procedures in Estivill’s work are not simply a matter of taste. They constitute not only a layer of meaning but also a set of resources that shape the complex space in which the images ultimately find their meaning, informed by literary, cinematographic, and philosophical sources.

By aligning her repertoire of visual resources with her discursive motivations, Estivill makes the elements in her images appear weightless, without firm anchors and, at times, with an uncertain embodiment: viewers cannot know exactly whether their physical presence is taking form or dissolving. They seem to struggle with their own materiality.

Nothing is definitive in Estivill’s universe. Almost everything is ambiguous, obscure, and undetermined, yet nonetheless humanly significant. Recognizing this characteristic of her work is the first step in exploring its meaning.

About the artist

Adriana Estivill is a British-born, Miami-based Mexican art photographer. Her work has appeared in several group exhibitions over the past few years. With a Master's degree in Book Arts, she has also produced several photo-books. Her last solo exhibition, MMXX, was held in 2023 at Librería U-Tópicas in Mexico City. 30 Seconds of Weightlessness is her first solo exhibition in Miami.

About the curator

José Antonio Navarrete (Cuban-Venezuelan, based in Miami) is a critic, researcher, and independent art and visual culture curator. He is in charge of the ArtMedia curatorial program and participates in several international projects as a curator or writer contributor.

About the gallery

Artmedia Gallery was founded in 2012. With a location in Little River, Miami, Florida, the gallery has the mission to exhibit and promote contemporary art based on photography and video practices. One of the gallery’s central objectives is to explore the vast possibilities of the expanded notion of art through media technology.