Mamut
Collage, objects
Variable sizes
Site specific installation in Tienda Dinosaurio, Santiago, Chile
2014
Mamut (Mammoth) is a site-specific installation set in a small room inside a shop in the center of Santiago which is owned by friends of mine. The shop is situated in what used to be an apartment.
When I was invited to be part of a cycle exhibits in the space, I was immediately drawn to the many layers of wallpaper and paint that had accumulated on the walls of over the years as different inhabitants changed the space to suit their tastes and needs.
My work involved carefully removing and recomposing these layers of material until I had successfully transformed the entire room into a large collage. Then, on top of this collage, I hung a series of framed collages from 2012, which were composed of cuttings from two children’s books that had been completely destroyed and reused. The books were didactics from the 1970s and ‘80 intended to teach children about specific subjects: one focused on dinosaurs and the other on good manners.
By blurring time and subject matter across multiple eras, I hoped to render temporal and visual distinctions indiscernible, both confounding and questioning the intended meanings of each image or decorative gesture.
