18.10 EL ESTADO DE LAS COSAS / THE STATE OF THINGS

XIII BIENAL FEMSA - EX TEMPLO DE SAN AGUSTÍN, ZACATECAS, MEXICO

Commissioned Project

The materials selected for this project are significant components of my family history. They are vestiges of an important company founded by my grandfather Daniel Carrera Hinojosa, in the state of Zacatecas, dedicated to the agro-industry, wine and packaging, which in the decade of the 70`s of the 20th century, had its economic boom.

With the six-year term of President López Portillo, whose economy was fictitiously buoyant and the signing of the Free Trade Agreement between Mexico, USA and Canada, many companies were irremediably affected; this was the case of Daniel Carrera e Hijos and other companies owned by the Carrera family; which in the mid nineties entered a crisis and then went into decline.

In Estado de las Cosas you can distinguish remains of fruit trees, such as guavas, peaches, apple trees, quinces and olive trees that were processed and canned as preserves. As well as the vines from the vineyards that provided, in addition to grapes for wine production, endless paths of play and exploration, which constitute my childhood memory. We can also appreciate stave boards, which are the remains of one of the bowling tables that existed inside the family house, built by my grandfather as a gift for one of his daughters and which represented the playful space for the third generation Carrera, which never managed to integrate into the family business process.

This installation metonymically presents a space for aesthetic contemplation, as well as for reflection on the current state of agribusiness in Mexico. The cartons, used in their moment for the packing and stowage of the finished product, today in their rottenness, are allegorically the color palette. The tones and their forms are the condition of transformation given by the passage of more than 30 years, during its storage in a trailer. The vehicle doors that maintain the vibrant yellow of the thermal insulation system, unwise for the conservation of the product during transport, are paradoxically also the symbolic container of the piece today.

This project not only presents a side of a family history, but also shows much of the history of our society and our time. Time reveals and is anchored in the natural cycle of matter; from the tree-wood-cardboard sequence it reveals the Detritus as a concept/consciousness, in which the cycle and the process of waste give rise to another moment, and then it is reused and used for other processes, in this case artistic, where the link of Nature equals Humanity becomes evident.