Secluded

2009
The artist's private apartment, Cologne, Germany

I disseminate huge quantities of waste plastic from the Industry throughout my department. Each room is completely covered up until the door frames of the rooms are sealed, in such a way that nobody can enter them. The spectators can only stay in the narrow hallway.

Here the idea of ​​a wall, of a closed space, of an almost absolute introversion develops. I'm expressing the feeling of confinement in front of an indolent society. A situation that I experienced as a foreigner at that time and that millions of immigrants / refugees are currently experiencing in the world. The doors, the windows closed and became insurmountable walls. As a reflection of the dozens of walls that have been created in the world, to date there are 70, according to geologist Elisabeth Vallet, director of the Geopolitics Observatory of the University of Quebec, in Montreal.

In Secluded I restructure my home, denying its function, transgressing the concept of housing and the practice of inhabiting. I impede protection, taking the space to its paroxysm, I create an unusual dark zone, that drowns the impulses of the life.

According to the census carried out by the geographer Michel Foucher, published in La Presse de Montreal (2009), all over the world there are currently insurmountable walls or barriers between countries of thousands of kilometers: The United States and Mexico wall of 3,200 kilometers. The wall of Rio de Janeiro, should reach 11,000 kilometers. The wall of the West Bank, also called The Wall of Shame, built by the government of Israel is isolating 80% of the West Bank-Palestinian territory. The wall of India and Pakistan of 2,900 kilometers. The wall of Ceuta and Melilla, Spain with 8.2 kilometers, etc.

Photo-Documentation: Janet Toro
Scroll to Top