Wandering Ways
Caminos errantes / Wandering ways is a visual
reflection on the theme of migration, on the loneliness
of human destiny and the conditional freedom
of movement we face on a daily basis. In this
essay I establish a relationship between space
and individual or the lack of it within the landscape.
I concentrate on migrations as the physical
change of environment, but also as psychological
challenge to understand another culture and
yet to keep alive one’s identity, even when moving
within one’s own country.
On my way to produce this body of work, I´ve wondered
many times how I could approach a subject
such as migrations, without falling into the trap of
what is easy and evident to the observer, running
away from the comfortable environment of either
becoming a voyeur of what is visually expected
when talking about migrations, or either showing
protagonists as “victims” of the process which I´m
part myself.
In several cities of the world, urban expansion is no
longer associated with the necessity to generate
living spaces for individuals who move into bigger
cities looking for broader employment opportunities.
As fast as the messiness of unsustainable urbanization
is developed, technocrats at metropolis
have created a false illusion of isolated and secure
private spaces, generating a kind of urban architectural
paranoia in a form of huge blind buildings,
where psychological barriers are bigger than distances
that separate physical spaces.
In this work I create my own imaginary, sometimes
using geometric patterns as visual codes to present
cyclical mass deployments, overcrowded
metropolis as well as certain areas of tension within
space-individual relationship ; in order to show
not only the natural barriers but also architectural
and social ones and also question : who am I, and
where do I fit in these new landscapes.
Jorge Luis Alvarez Pupo
2010
