TEMPORAL VENTAJA, 2025
(Temporary Advantage)
Who decides what things are made of? How can destiny be distracted? How long does an illusion last?
We try reversing the order where the image stretches until it cracks the gaze, with pessimistic ideas in general, but optimistic ones in particular. We build containers within containers, a place that can float until it loses gravity; a place that takes us as far as the illusion allows, where resisting does not mean enduring pressure, where seeing and distrusting are very similar, and where the thing does not seem us so exact.
The strategies of illusion and visual simulation propose a principle of equivalence that has been used throughout history by social resistance movements, political struggles, or just for survival. Unlike utopia, strategies based on visual simulations react to greater threats by resorting to imagination to create temporary fissures in the perception of reality, provoking moments of temporary advantage that transform precariousness into strength, weakness into superiority, and which hide in visual folds or simply feign vehemence.
Here, the plausible has nothing to do with reality. We searched for some references, wild tales, and stories that are compost of other stories and serve as decoys, all lacking in evidence. We found something about pirates and the color of their ships; something about multiplying bonfires and pretending to be a crowd; something about dazzling to confuse, about dirtying to disappear, and about negotiating with nature to defend food. We also found that humans are one of the few species that camouflage themselves. We found something about magic as a weapon, some spells to feign arsenals to combat genocides and the enormous need to rest.
We use eight hundred thirty-seven square meters of paper to draw a ship: an armored, porous, paper ship made of pieces that will fall apart. We negotiate with materials, images, and with the journey until each illusion contains at least one hope. Here, a ship is merely an idea, a temporary refuge because fleeing isn’t always about running away. Sometimes, it’s about holding your breath until your imagination is on our side.
