Hugo Zelada-Romero

UAPs or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, a term recently introduced to replace the earlier, more narrow “UFO” represent a rupture in the continuity of what we are willing to perceive as real. Despite the sudden surge of interest in these occurrences in the last several years, especially in America, we lack the language or conceptual frameworks to fully apprehend the disquiet they provoke.

My goal with this project is not merely to archive purported encounters with the unexplained, but to invite viewers to confront the limits of their own knowledge, immersing them in narratives of “high strangeness,” particularly those rooted in the Kansas landscape. Through the images and accompanying stories, I want to offer multiple perspectives on these phenomena, urging us to question how we process events that hover on the edges of fact, between the credible and the irrational.

These photographs, created between 2018 and 2024, evoke not only the geographical spaces where these incidents reportedly occurred, but also attempt to reconstruct the psychological realms they inhabit. By deliberately manipulating these images, whose appearance is heightened, but not overtly transformed, I want to provoke engagement with the emotional undercurrent of wrestling with the unknown.

My focus on Kansas is intentional. It’s a region with its own metaphysical history, deeply entangled (since White settlement) with both rural isolation and a yearning for connection to something larger. As public fascination with UAPs accelerates, spurred on by recent governmental disclosures and cultural shifts, I am reminded of how these phenomena occupy a liminal space, reflecting our anxieties about encountering the unexplained.

My practice extends beyond observation: I actively participate in the rituals and embodied experiences that shape these phenomena. I have traveled the roads where sightings occurred at night, paused in the silence of what might be missing time, lit devotional candles, and prayed in Catholic churches. In doing so, I temporarily suspended disbelief to inhabit the state of being that these profound encounters evoke. This experiential engagement, merging the supernatural with the sacred, allows me to equate disparate realms where an AUP’s enigma and a pilgrimage’s devotion are placed on equal footing.

Working serially, I create variations and self-referential layers that generate meaning across different mediums: photography, sculpture, video, and installation. Each new representation is both a continuation and a reinterpretation of previous works. This recursive process mirrors the structure of belief itself: a feedback loop of observation, interpretation, and re-experience. By collapsing the boundaries between the incomprehensible and the holy, my work explores the aftermath of ontological shock, the moment when transformative experiences force us to return to a familiar world armed with new, albeit fractured, understandings.

Embracing principles akin to Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), I treat each element—from crop circle labyrinths to relic-like soil vials—as autonomous entities that resist reduction to human narratives. These phenomena, as hyperobjects, are too vast and layered to be fully grasped from one perspective alone. They insist on multiple interpretations: one can “overstand” or “understand,” never fully resolving the tension between faith and skepticism. Ultimately, my work is a meditation on how the incomprehensible is integrated (or left unresolved) once the initial shock subsides, inviting viewers into a space where every encounter challenges the boundaries of what we know, what we believe, and how we choose to create meaning.

This work was exhibited at the Salina Arts Center in Salina, KS, for the Summer 2025 season