What we do is secret
Mateo Ruiz González

This short series explore the emotional terrain of belonging and collective memory within a football community. By using a handheld 4x5 field camera and fragmenting bodies in motion,
the artist blurs the lines between individual and collective experience.

The photographs, constructed through abstraction, create a tension between stillness and motion that translates into a visual metaphor for the experience of belonging. Through this series, the artist invites the viewer to reflect on how everyday rituals, such as morning or afternoon football games, can serve as essential spaces for emotional renewal and shared understanding. This series is a meditation on the emotional return of the body post-trauma, re-engaging in activity within a “secret” safe space, rarely found in the sport.

This exhibition was was held at Depot NYC at 222 Roebling St, Brooklyn, New York in October 2024, and was conceptualized, produced, and brought to life as a collaboration between Beginner Swimmer Works and Secret Futebol Club.

*** All works edition of one, sold out

Installation at Depo NYC

Selected works

Exhibition portfolio

Three 8x11” archival pigment prints
Printed on Hahnemuhle Photo Luster
Stamped string kraft folio

Edition of 10

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Mateo Ruiz Gonzalez is a lens-based artist and researcher from Bogota, Colombia. His work traverses the paths of documentary, fiction and fine art, capturing tensions between present realities and memory. Through his interest in cultural beliefs variables -- myth and non fiction -- his practice explores settings of human behavior, its emotional nexus with the land, and how time alters the relations between the two. With a background in Fine and Printed Arts, Mateo envisions his works to find a physical form through which the imagery becomes a document for study.

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