Hondartza Fraga: Beyond Scale

Hondartza Fraga works in drawing, photography, animation and video. Her work is an ongoing exploration of the different 'distances' between ourselves and everything else: spatial, temporal, emotional, cultural and imagined. Fascinated by extreme environments, from deep sea to deep space, she explores our individual and collective relationship with these kind of places and their mediated image. She is currently studying a Practice-led PhD at the School of Design at the University of Leeds.

"Beyond Scale is an art gallery the size of a dolls' house, approximately 42cm wide, 46cm tall and 30cm deep. Combining my love for art and all things miniature, I built this little blue box during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. Missing seeing art in person and physically visiting art galleries, I decided to build my own. I consider this project related to my other art space project, an actual-size gallery in Portugalete, Northern Spain, called pocagallery which I started in 2012.

I cannot be as involved with pocagallery as I would like – living in a different country with various life and work commitments make it hard to travel – so Beyond Scale is my 'local' branch. The project is also inspired by those who have transcended small scales with tiny art spaces, such as Shelter in Place gallery or A Delicate Matter. Upstairs there is the gallery space (42 x 21 x 29cm). This room will host a programme of changing exhibitions of work by myself and many other artists (I hope!). The space is available for testing new works or showing works that are originally small.

Beyond Scale is located at my own home and for the time being, exhibitions will only be accessible online. However, I do hope to open up for appointment visits in the near future – when it is safe to do so – and perhaps tour this little blue box to other life-size art spaces so that more people can have as much fun looking at it as I am having making it.

The 'cafe' is on the ground floor and is, of course, just for fun – where I am fully indulging my amateur miniaturist skills, I made all the food and some of the furniture. But it is also the room where I display pieces from my own collection of tiny artworks. I'm interested in hearing from other artists about showing their work in Beyond Space or indeed pocagallery, and they can email me at pocagallery@gmail.com."

You can find out more about Beyond Scale here and see more of Hondartz's work on her website or Instagram.

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