The Other, My Friends and Family, and Myself - Proposal I & II
I was never able to exhibit 'The Other, My Friends and Family, and Myself,' but now that we live with the reality of mass shootings and a divided population, I think this work is more relevant than before and needs to come to life.
Proposal I
Proposal II - Final
A B O U T
During a social conflict, we stop listening or having the willingness to understand the other. I once heard of a video of an older woman repeatedly yelling at a young soldier that he was a traitor. She continues until the general begins to beat her, while the soldier, a member of her family, stands still and looks. The Zapatistas had just raised, and it was the first time in Mexico that we had seen the army doing something other than cleaning streets. Friends and families were fighting verbally and physically, and we all had opinions about the situation.
'The Other, My Friends and Family, and Myself,' installation includes the viewer on both sides of the conflict. An armed conflict forces you to pick a side, but the reality is that we face each other, along with our friends and family.
The first proposal had ceramic AK-47s, the most common rifle in the world at the time, facing a wall of mirrors. For the second and final proposal, I replaced the guns with a "rain" of empty bullets that bounce up and down rhythmically while covering the whole room.
An armed and divided population will eventually turn on itself, suffering significant losses on both sides, and we are slowly beginning to do it.
