outbreak, 2010

Installation view at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA

outbreak is a multi-media exhibition that references states of contamination and dependence—whether these are political or systemic. The exhibition has two main components: a sculptural wall and stairway installation titled outbreak and a video installation entitled aguasmalas (blackwaters). 

outbreak, the installation, references cells, protrusions, mines or camouflaged contaminants within the architectural space, that feed on the environment they inhabit and occupy. The building and its exhibition space serve as host to these elements, and as metaphors for symbiotic or parasitic relationships, where both the host and its appendix are transformed into a new hybrid site/being. The work also alludes to seemingly inoffensive situations or elements that are simultaneously harmful, to power and dependent relationships, and to systems of latent movement that may imperceptibly transform an entire entity, just as the walls reveal a state of perpetual transition. The walls become a metaphor for the body/skin and sites of infestation and intrusion, and are loosely based on patterns of current global conflict.  outbreak is part of an ongoing series of works that invade interior and exterior spaces via site-related sculptural installations. 

aguasmalas (blackwaters) is a multimedia installation consisting of two mirrored channels and parasitic, bomb-like three-dimensional forms that activate the architectural space onto which the videos are projected. Images of mass rallies, protests and bombings are juxtaposed with the single, isolated body drifting, unattached, at the edge of an unidentified coast. Among others, footage of the recent uprising in Managua, Nicaragua following municipal elections, and the bombing of Iraq, serve to reframe locally occurring issues within a transnational context. The body floats in dark, indeterminate waters, which allude to contamination or oil. It should be noted that the English translation of aguasmalas also references the private military company Blackwater, contracted by the US government to provide security services in Iraq.