Ark of The Life (Exitus-Reditus)
1994-2004
Modified boat, wood, bronze, textile and other materials collected from the coast.
215 x 80 x 80 cm.
Environmental Artwork that was first shown at the Personal Exhibition “Exitus-Reditus, Cartography of the Self”, Servando Gallery (Genesis Art Galleries), Havana.
Installative sculpture piece made from the remains of a battered boat that the tide brought, in the summer of 1994, off the coast of Jaimanitas, Havana, during the so-called “Rafters’ Crisis“, “boat people crisis” or “balsero crisis” (Crisis de los Balseros). Arca de la Vida is a work that is built with the remains of one of the many shipwrecks that occurred after trying to cross the Strait of Florida in precarious -improvised- boats during this infamous period.
Transition Mirror: Mantra and Mourning
This work, which received second prize in the Sculpture Biennial (2008) in Havana, reflects on the so-called rafters´ crisis, of course, but also proposes a cultural reflection on human displacements and migrations. It is an autobiographical work and has been adjusted -morphologically- to the physical dimensions of my own body, so, it is made to measure. It could be summarized as a fragment of my life history; pain and mourning: Sacred syllables of the mantra that vibrates in my consciousness.
Exitus-Reditus: Pain in Migration
It is a piece that proposes diverse discursive levels (political, philosophical, social, cultural) so, the movement described in this work not only alludes to the mere translation in space, but also refers to the tension of change and the experience derived from it as an ontological metaphor of the journey (existence). Ark of Life, ultimately, aims to become a metaphor for life itself: a work that describes and lasts the short lapse of a human existence.