54 arroyos _ 54 streams
(2020)
Installation views, Juan de Salazar Spanish Cultural Center, Asunción, 2020 (c) Cristian Palacios Feltes
The series 54 streams is a memoir to the 54 hidden streams of Asunción, the artist’s birth-city. According to the historian Juan Bautista Gill, in the 19th century, paved streets were built on top of the 54 streams of the city and its surroundings. On a day-to-day basis, these streams are silenced but become noticeable with almost every storm as strong torrents, bringing destruction not only to streets but even taking lives.
The artist collected the base images from different internet platforms (some images are pixelated or of low resolution), corresponding to strong torrents that flood the streets with every torrential rain. Such images were digitally intervened by the artist; she extracted the entire built environment, as well as the objects dragged by the flooding waters. The resulting images reveal the great momentum of torrential rain, and allow the audience to imagine the imagine fifty-four gentle streams that are hiden under the city of Asunción.
The series 54 streams was part of the project Cartographies of Disobedience, a series of investigations held in Asunción, that proposes a reflection on some urban and environmental conflicts from modern cities, and the responsibility of each person as an actor involved in the processes of urban transgression and deterioration.
The series 54 streams is a memoir to the 54 hidden streams of Asunción, the artist’s birth-city. According to the historian Juan Bautista Gill, in the 19th century, paved streets were built on top of the 54 streams of the city and its surroundings. On a day-to-day basis, these streams are silenced but become noticeable with almost every storm as strong torrents, bringing destruction not only to streets but even taking lives.
The artist collected the base images from different internet platforms (some images are pixelated or of low resolution), corresponding to strong torrents that flood the streets with every torrential rain. Such images were digitally intervened by the artist; she extracted the entire built environment, as well as the objects dragged by the flooding waters. The resulting images reveal the great momentum of torrential rain, and allow the audience to imagine the imagine fifty-four gentle streams that are hiden under the city of Asunción.
The series 54 streams was part of the project Cartographies of Disobedience, a series of investigations held in Asunción, that proposes a reflection on some urban and environmental conflicts from modern cities, and the responsibility of each person as an actor involved in the processes of urban transgression and deterioration.
“A poetic operation between presence and absence, evocation and negation, a rereading of an urban register and a calling of attention to nature” - Alban Martinez Gueyraud, art historian, architect urbanist and curator