As I walked through L’Horta I collected small material remains: natural or discarded objects. He always accompanied the selection of a vestige with a photo of its territorial context, aware that the moment I chose it, he would be interrupting his physical roots with that location forever. Plastic Contexts is an attempt to recreate and value that contextualization. By wrapping the photograph and its corresponding object in a resin tablet, I sought to REintroduce a state of rootedness, even if it is a plastic rootedness.
The same curing process involved in working with resin provided an element of tangible temporality to the fixed meeting between vestige and context. I also played with the fact that the resin doesn’t have to contain the entire object; That is to say, by having the vestiges half submerged, they are integrated with that outstanding quality (both visual, experimental and literal) for which I chose them. The three-dimensional piece invites the audience to immerse themselves in the scene, simulating the experience of finding the object suspended in its context, just as I found it.
Obviously the exhibition space does not compare with what it is like to be present in L’Horta with all the five senses, but this work is a tribute to that place and its material vestiges. Let’s remember to be curious and contextualize: identity is indisputable, but it can easily become invisible or forgotten when separated from its environment.
