DEVASTATED

  • Video installation
  • Ceiling to floor projection and 2 mechanical pieces
  • Dimensions variable

The passing of a hurricane leaves a devastated area in its wake. On occasions, like this one, Ampudia’s artistic research takes on a slightly more pessimist tinge yet with his signature combative message.

The desolation referenced in the title becomes even more incisive when we perceive a bloody vinyl on the ceiling from which the projected words seem to drip. This again connects with the Where to Sleep series, yet now the familiar red sleeping bags wiggle along the floor like worms. This time the bags inhabiting the space introduce a sense of unease. The work alludes to the term “devastated regions” used by the Fascist army to classify areas destroyed by the uprising, in most cases by the army itself, for which Franco’s regime later created the DGRD (Directorate-General for Devastated Regions), with a mission to rebuild infrastructures, artistic monuments and housing in its bid to give shape to “a new Spain”. And so, the bags also bring to mind those of soldiers, those bags of combative spirit that inhabit the space uneasily. Now they are not used for sleeping, and the coverings are more reminiscent of a pair of larva that speak of the state of health of our environs, in yet another unsettling visual metaphor…
Blanca de la Torre