By Biennale of Sydney
22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts) Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
About the artist
Teresa Margolles
Born 1963 in Culican, Mexico.
Lives and works between Mexico City and Madrid
"We are all witnesses here, we are not in the place of the victim."
- Teresa Margolles
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts) Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
Teresa Margolles studied Communication Sciences and Forensic Medicine at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, starting her artistic career in the early 1990s. Ever since, she has been developing a powerful oeuvre that demands attention to violence, poverty and alienation, exposing the social and economic order that renders violent and destitute deaths an accepted normality.
The work of Teresa Margolles constitutes a way of seeing, and of making present that which is often imperceptible, by incorporating the physical memory of conflict and pain into focused and poetic material combinations that bring those who encounter them within tangible reach of violence. In their often unassuming and delicate forms, these materials make palpable the pervasive nature, ubiquity and hence invisibility of death, loss and suffering.
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts) Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos
Teresa Margolles' work Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts), 2020 is an accumulation of violent acts, plotted through a complex memorial to lives lost and to sites where trauma continues to resonate and bare material traces of the violence perpetrated.
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts) Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
In both Mexico and Australia, Margolles has visted sites where women and trans women have been murdered. The blood that has soaked into these sites, the hair and body odour are remembered amongst the sites' other accumulated particles.
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts) Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
Drop by drop onto the electric hot plate, the life evaporates but leaves a stain.
Without directly using abject materials, Margolles re-articulates the absent body and the violence perpetrated against it through viscerally present materials, a red plastic butchers curtain, drops of water, and hot plates, creating a chain of events that remembers the losses through a signalling action that becomes visually accumulated moments.
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts) Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
These particles are collected through sponging the sites with water – collecting what residue remains in particles, spirit and memory – we are all witnesses. The water is then collated and incorporated into a process where a droplet of water – signifying an individual life – is fed through a water system that drops from a central irrigation pipe.
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts) Installation ImageBiennale of Sydney
"Each memory or each woman is covered by the next death, they are forgotten, there are too many deaths. One murder and another murder and another, and then when do we ever remember the one from yesterday, the less famous one? We are all witnesses here, we are not in the place of the victim. When the ground is sponged and the water is collected, the people collecting this essence are not on their knees, they are not in a state of religious stance, they do not kneel...
... Some sites are children's’ playgrounds and there is a mix of beauty and tragedy. Some people came up to me and asked about the water and the action, but some stayed back and looked on – especially one women whose friend was murdered not long ago, she stood back quietly and watched us cleanse and collect from that space."
- Teresa Margolles
Tap to explore
Navigate around Teresa Margolles' installation then explore more of NIRIN at the National Art School.
Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approximations to the Scenes of the Facts), 2020
mixed-media installation
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with assistance from Acción Cultural Española (AC/E), Embassy of Spain and Galerie Peter Kilchmann
Courtesy the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich
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