Sculpture and sound installation for solo exhibition at Red Poppy Art House, 2018

Curated by Elena Mancarelli

Press Release, click here.

Photography courtesy of Alex Molinari

(text transcript)

When I was a child I used to spend my vacations in a small town in the Colombian Caribbean coast where my grandparents had a tiny apartment. Every day my grandparents got my cousins and I ready to go to the beach, and covered our bodies in sunblock and insect repellent, knowing that city kids have very fragile skin. The hot and humid weather and the salty smell of the port and fishery are engrained in my memory. Under the beating sun dozens of flies would come and swarm around us attracted to the sugar in our soda cans and the sweat in our skins. Despite my constant efforts to keep them off me, their conviction always outweighed mine. Whether I was playing in the sand, taking a nap, or having a snack, the constant buzz would disrupt my activities to the point that I was swinging my arms in the air and swatting at my face. It was really unnerving, and I always wondered why my grandfather could just sit there, calm and undisturbed. So one day I got the courage to ask him, “How come you aren’t bothered by the flies?” 

And he responded, “What flies? There are no flies here!” and continued gazing calmly at the horizon. Now, more than twenty years later and thousands of miles from home, I still wish I had the same capability to ignore unnerving and persistent botherances. The smart phones in our pockets are constantly buzzing like omnipresent flies. News about massacres, natural disasters, and imminent wars are combined with the FOMO and the need for likes, that causes anxiety and depression among a phone-addicted population. So I find myself in the same situation I was in years ago, trying to ignore something that is impossible to ignore, swatting aimlessly at the air, while repeating to my self as if it was a mantra “¡Aquí no hay moscas!