Habitan Esas laderas / Change in y, change in x
Installation work, mixed media and publication.
Buenos Aires, April-May 2019.
Acéfala Galería residency program,
Solo exhibition Acéfala Galería, Buenos Aires, May-July 2019,
Point of No Return. Attunement of Attention at NART, Estonia, 2021,
Noorderlicht Fotofestival, NL, 2021,
With the support of Stroom Den Haag.
My brother’s leg grows at a rhythm of its own, slower than the rest of his body. Through a gesture of inversion, his scar (a result of multiple surgeries to stretch his limb), becomes a mountain chain. An attempt to inhabit fictive territories and different temporalities.
A mold is a negative version of the object casted. Based on that negative shape, a silicone mold of a deep scar in my brother’s leg as a result of multiple surgeries during his childhood to extend his limb, and through 3D modeling with photogrammetry techniques, I create the illusion of a mountain chain, the isomorphic negative shape of the bed river that was his scar. Video allows us to get rid of scale, and play with the illusion of inhabiting a space that is bigger than us, so that it holds us. A place where we can wonder about. This mountain chain bears the textures of the scar of my brother in a level of detail invisible to the bare eye, and not only magnifies it, but also displaces it from something in him, to something outside him that he (and I) could explore.
Once I asked my brother how it felt to carry that scar. He answered: "My whole being is the answer. There is no outside from where to ask that question."
Being alone on the top of a mountain or in the depth of a wound can feel isolated, both beautiful and horrifying.
A slightly stylised version of that conversation between siblings accompanies the animation video on a second screen to the right. One can choose to only look at the mountain, and sometimes the words appear quietly on the corner of our eye, as whispers. The sound of the video is little more than a withering background that is meant to contribute to a meditative state of the mind.
Sister- can we talk about this?
Brother- can we?
-There is something in me that grows with its own rhythm.
-We use so many other things to move.
-Nevertheless it needed to be stretched.
-And what’s outside?
-Anestesia.
(…)
Trace over trace. And even this one could be erased.
-And then what?
-Move forward, climb up.
-A foot, another foot. What else?
Brother: - That question does not exist in me because my whole being is the answer.
-We thought it would be better on the other side, that the waters should open up.
Through a series of strategies of inversion and copy, a fictive territory is constructed at the same time it is explored. Taking a mould of my brother’s scar as a point of departure, various tool-works such as contour serigraphy line maps and drawings, GoogleEarth-like images, a silicone sculpture, a dispositif that tracks rising water and and a 3d animation and a publication are combined in an installation work. A small hand made publication may accompany the installation.
Design by Vera Zhou
double screen projection: 3d animation video - text
Text in collaboration with Silvia Rottenberg
Sound by Jorrit van Rijn
