OTHER MIDDLE AGES ARE POSSIBLEInspired by the theories that predict or attempt to describe the advent of a new Dark Age for our civilization, this project situates the Middle Ages as a space-time that is both the origin and the destiny of the present moment. Using social, cultural and aesthetic analogies, these works connect the Middle Ages to the present, as a period of transition, as a time marked by a sense of the end of a cycle and impending catastrophe, but also as a time of opportunity for the development of new models.The Middle Ages preserved the heritage of the past at will. Not through cultural cryogenization, but through translation and self-interested use: it was an immense bricolage operation balanced between despair, nostalgia and hope. As a result of a similar process, this set of artworks are hybrid objects. They combine and reinterpret media such as codex, fresco painting or stone carving, and are made with new materials that mimic older ones in form and finish. At the level of visual narrative, we recognise characteristic elements of the Middle Ages as commonplace in the collective imagination, but the ensemble of historical clichés is presented to us disturbed by anachronisms and distortions of various kinds. By applying a speculative filter to the fictions depicted, the imagined future becomes intertwined with alternative versions of the medieval period. A series of events are postulated as points of divergence to outline as many uchronic Middle Ages, timelines abandoned centuries ago but which may sooner or later reappear on the horizon. |
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Depiction of Avruppean Customs 2021 / 150 x 200 x 5 cm / Acrylic, plaster, tarp, wood, screws |
Rational Management of Serfdom 2021 / 116 x 65 x 5 / Colour Ink on paper, wood, XPS, plaster, plastic paint, screws |
Into Karakorum’s Orbit 2021 / 105 x 110 x 5 cm / Colour Ink on paper, wood, XPS, plaster, plastic paint, screws |
Headless, Reckless 2022 / 53 x 72 x 21 cm / Acrylic, wood, hinges,found items |
People’s Republic of Cockaigne 2021 / 105 x 110 x 5 cm / Colour Ink on paper, wood, XPS, plaster, plastic paint, screws |
Unsteady Shelter 2022 / 49 x 65 x 14 cm / Acrylic, wood, hinges,found items |
Gondwana Reunited 2022 / 82 x 114 x 6 / Colour Ink on paper, wood, XPS, plaster, plastic paint, screws |
The Middle Way 2022 / 41 x 65 x 16 cm / Acrylic, wood, hinges,found items |
Installation Views A Past More Unpredictable Than the Future / Nadie Nunca Nada No, Madrid / 2024 |
People’s Republic of Cockaigne (detail) |
People’s Republic of Cockaigne (detail) |
Into Karakorum’s Orbit (detail) |
Into Karakorum’s Orbit (detail) |
Into Karakorum’s Orbit (detail) |
Rational Management of Serfdom (detail) |
Rational Management of Serfdom (detail) |
Rational Management of Serfdom (detail) |
Gondwana Reunified (detail) |