“Señores sentados haciendo rayas” (“Men plotting lines), HD 16:09, B/W & sound, 9’30’’
“Men plotting lines” talks about borders and other human fictions related to lines and stripes. It interconnects all sorts of facts and anecdotes through humour in order to talk about geopolitics through the symbology of stripes and its evolution through times.
There are important lines. For example, the line that separates the things you care about from those you don’t. There are invisible lines. There are invented lines. There are lines that do not exist, but we have come to respect them. We have created walls, passports, dictionaries, machine guns, blood and a lot of things that we can see; we care more or less.
Actually, making a line is very easy; objectively easy. Questioning it, not so much; Moving it, an epic.
Lines are very interesting: abstract but carrying a lot of realism. Think of flags, roads or cloth handkerchiefs. Stripes tell us about our history. Let’s take, for example, zebras. Zebras went from being considered satanic animals in the Middle Ages to guide us when crossing roads. Now ask yourself what colour zebras are? This has no innocent answer.
The installation is composed by:
Video: “Men plotting lines“, video, HD.
Wallpaper: “International water”, vinyl, variable measures.
Sculpture: “Family of zebras“, vegan leather, 3 pieces.
Drawing: “The lines of the sky“, ink on paper, 100×70 cm, 2019