The sculptures I create seem unfinished because they materialise the percentage of the apartment I could purchase with 20 years of my own life; considering the time it would take me to pay a mortgage loan. My 3D images show fragments of the walls that will be built to a 1:1 scale as site-specific interventions. These sculptures replicate the design and materials used in new original apartments being built in their vicinity, in neighbourhoods with rapidly growing real-estate prices, displacing people like me who can’t afford to pay for them. These artworks are some sort of anti ready-mades created when luxurious design is moved into poor areas. Instead of bringing the everyday into the white cube, the white cube goes outside, into the everyday world.
San Ángel (7.98m2)
2018
Wood, aluminum and cement
280 x 285 x 240 cm
These sculptures work as site-specific interventions. They are fragments of apartments located in areas where prices are skyrocketing. They represent the percentage that I would be able to purchase if I got a 20-year mortgage loan. Rather than representing the debt, they materialize the time of my life I would spend trying to pay for it. Their design and materials are the same as the ones used in the newly built condos in their vicinity.
Sueño de casa, (Dream of house)
2017-2018
FULL HD Video
4:51 min
Creating these sculptures lead me to work with a parallel between renders and desires, considering that both represent plans waiting to become real at some point in the future. In turn, after I worked in this project I started engaging with moving pictures and the game engines used to generate the visuals and virtual worlds of architectural animations.
El Pedregal, (.68 m2)
2017
Intervention in the Coyoacán area. Wood, aluminum and cement
61 x 105 x 240 cm
My value time changes in different parts of the city. Here I built a column that represents 20 years of my life if I purchased a property in a wealthy area called Jardines del Pedregal. Then I moved it to the Pedregal de Santo Domingo, an adjacent poor neighborhood where it stayed for 12 months. This is the neighborhood where I grew up, and where the price of housing is also increasing.
Palo Alto (4.5 m2)
2017
Intervention in the Santa Fe area. Wood, aluminum and cement
250 x 180 x 240 cm
20 years of my life are worth 4.5 m2 of an apartment located in Santa Fe, one of the most luxurious neighborhoods in Mexico City. This sculpture represents that value and it is located in the land owned by the Cooperativa de Vivienda Palo Alto—one of the oldest housing cooperatives in Mexico. The Cooperativa has used its organization to prevent being displaced by real estate development.