Statement 2019
Transcription of the statement for the 21st Biennial
I see my work within the notion of knowledge production, therefore of scientific research. This should be understood as a broad approach to what we may consider as the unknown. Artistic practice has made room for the overlapping of interests regardless of specificity. Art, at its best, could be a cataclysm of perspectives that may provide insight on contemporary issues. In this sense, I think any kind of research is totally valid to look for meaning and, at the end, to develop our personal voice. I got involved in scientific research almost a decade ago, when I decided to learn something out of the realm of artistic exercise.
My projects start from questions, curiosities, opportunity and imagination. I've found myself working along scientists who, as many artists, are trying to turn the invisible into the visible. Speculative realism, science fiction and even magic are ingredients I look at when I'm developing ideas. I like the imaginary of an alchemist gathering first-hand information over the years, from the ice in Antarctica to the crater of a volcano in Galapagos. What a character like that represents is actually humans spreading out in a mechanism for discovery and survival. Somehow, I think we all share that logic—something innate that triggers our most basic desires. In this sense, art constructs ways of seeing the environment that may contribute to form a personal, critical opinion. In this context, artists as members of society are part of a web of analysis and propositions to confront current dilemmas.
I come from a place defined by an active volcanic landscape. Quito lies on the slope of a big volcano that has erupted a few times over the last twenty years. I consider volcanoes as the origin and the end of some ecosystem. A volcano is a paradox in itself. It destroys and constructs. It transforms and gives birth to new beginnings, a greater force that precedes humankind and it is not able to get domesticated or fully accurately predicted. If we have the ability to overcome the disaster and tragedy that volcanoes may produce, a volcanic landscape allows us to imagine possible futures. This includes the possibility of dreaming another reality in social, economic and political terms.