| "Pese a las Cosas" is an exploration of the tension between barbarity and modernity within the Venezuelan identity. The project depicts the deterioration of an architectural space that houses various works of art by Alejandro Otero. Despite being neglected, the site maintains its beauty, now transformed by nature and sustained through community efforts to preserve it. Spanning from 2015 to 2023, a series of photographs within the project capture the gradual decay of two of Otero's pieces at la Concha Acústica de Bello Monte, emphasizing the passage of time and the resilience inherent in both art and community. It also serves as a representation of another recurring theme in Venezuelan culture and history: a nation fragmented and longing for unity, seeking reconstruction. |
| As part of “Pese a las Cosas,” the video captures my symbolic attempt to piece together the shattered components of Alejandro Otero's extensive mosaic public artwork in Bello Monte’s Acoustic Shell, commissioned in the 1950s. My longing for reconstruction is represented through my interactive play with the ruins of the artwork of this amphitheater over the years. In the last part of the video, my daughter joins in the effort to rebuild something whose original form she is yet unfamiliar with. The colorful tile landscape serves as a metaphor for the country's fragmentation and collapse, and my ongoing struggle to heal, reconstruct, and transform both the physical space and my own identity. |
