Posts

Pop UP Tourist Information Centre

Image
  Open PUTIC. Triptych 3M X 1M,  Scale model 1:10. Re-mounting of author’s “Modernity’s Bridge” (Project Anywhere 2020). Infographics split on the convex side of mirrors: global survey about the unprecedented violence and destruction in Santiago de Chile: respondents knew or heard: Nothing 40%/Very Little 30%/Something 24%/A Lot 6%,  yet 50% believed the urban insurrection would improve equality.  PUTIC, one-third open, Ground Zero site map. Embracing the tourist are three symbolic sites of destruction in Ground Zero: Centre, Plaza Baquedano - Earth; Left, the GAM - Paradise; Right, the Police Monument/Church - Purgatory. Uniting each: graphic representation of the Andes Mountain range taken from a commemorative box of Andes matches as the horizon; Midground, Metro public transport map with some of the arson attacked stations in flames; Base, Event chart, October 18 to November 25, 2019,  P eace accord signed but peace never came then 1.2 million marched. Some 2000 assaulting/Molotov/r

la ciudad enferma es rescatable

Image
La ciudad enferma es rescatable  is a temporary, site-specific installation suspended from the Racalamac Bridge, Santiago, Chile. It consists of 288 builder’s plumb bobs, each inscribed with this phrase and suspended on plumb lines to trace an inverted form of the bridge. The work spans the 35 metres of the river section of the bridge and creates a moving arched screen of 11 metres at the counter zenith that touches the river that is a torrent. The title phrase is attributed to the 19 th C Intendant of Santiago,  Vicuña  Mackenna, who changed the city’s form through the creation of public spaces that included the canalisation of the Mapocho River.  The Racalamac Bridge is a 1950s pedestrian bridge designed to span two flows: the flow of the canalized Mapocho River and the flow of traffic on one of the expressways that changed the city form and public space in the 20 th C.  La ciudad enferma es rescatable  manifests these urban design intentions and the responding natural counte

Re-Constitución

Image
In the attempt to transform  Santiago into a European city at the turn of the 20 th C, the canalisation of the Mapocho River solved the flooding problems but caused great social disruption. Until the late 19 th C it held a place in the public imaginary as one of Santiago’s four icons and was represented in landscape painting as such (Felsenhardt, 2017). However, the episodic torrent that was previously part of daily life was transformed and managed into a marginal place and a public space associated with rubbish and disease. The canalised causeway became the site of homelessness, drug addiction and suicide. During the military dictatorship of General Pinochet (1973-1989) this public space was both the site of creative protest (see the work of UNAC Cultural Union below) and, in the words of writer Roberto Ampuero, a site where “the dead that floated in the Mapocho with the marks of torture and a bullet in back of the neck” reminded all of the regime’s brutal response to oppos

Visita río Mapocho

Image
A walk in the causeway of the Mapocho River was offered as part of the extension program for the exhibition Orillas, Puentes y el Torrente. This walk was planned to enter the causeway from the only entrance that is accessible 24/7 365 days of the year. In this sense it is the only point at which the Mapocho River as such becomes a public space. However, on the same day, that was planned three months earlier, the body of a murdered woman was found just 100 metres from the entrance point and the police used this to enter the crime scene. Our walk continued in the opposite direction towards where the Canal San Carlos enters the Mapocho River. Canal San Carlos was an earlier canalisation project that supplied sufficient water for the growing cities needs. In combination with the canalisation of the Mapocho it turns the flow into a mostly muddy torrent.

Respirando el río (2016)

Image
This is a video on continuous loop of an inflatable swimming buoy being inflated and deflated by breathe. Depending on when the viewer begins to watch the video it is difficult to tell if I am taking air in order to breath and live or giving air into the membrane to use it as a life saving device. In the end it is obvious that I am doing both, or is it? The sound in this video is important as well. The video is actually the buoy being inflated and then this footage is reversed to deflate it - the sound is reversed as well. The type of sound created when the person is taking air from the buoy is disturbing. The sound in this video is important as well. The video is actually the buoy being inflated and then this footage is reversed to deflate it - the sound is reversed as well. In the gallery, this awkward breathing was the background sound to the progressive drawing Abajo los puentes yo vivo río Mapocho. These two works  were positioned diagonally opposite in the gallery and curved sur