CIRCUMSOLAR, MIGRATION 3
CircumSolar, Migration 3 is a contemplation on migratory sea birds captured during their breeding season at Látrabjarg, the western most point of Iceland, which is the largest bird cliff in all Europe—14 km long and up to 440 m high—hosting up to 40% of the world population of some species. At any moment, be it day or night, there are great bird migrations taking flight. Ornithologists estimate that more than 5 billion birds annually journey across the hemisphere. Even greater than the complex weather systems, bird migration is the one unifying natural phenomenon in the world.

As an immigrant myself, I am interested on issues of migration, of both animals and humans, and just like birds, we—scientists, farm workers, presidents, artists—journey back and forth dozens of times in the course of our life, establishing migratory patterns. Current immigration crises around the world, and specifically along the Mexico / U.S. border, where hundreds of migrating children, women and men have lost their lives, questions the geopolitics of territorial boundaries.

Formally, the video image is experienced vertically, defamiliarizing the seascape, so that the boundary dividing sea and sky becomes unstable and blurred. The spatial shift, together with a low video frame rate furthers this abstraction so we may understand the migratory impetus as code; a genetic code for evolutionary preservation. With this work, I reflect on how we as human species no longer have an understanding of our place within the greater scheme of life.


Exhibition History:

10th Arte Laguna Prize Final Exhibition, March 20 through April 3, 2016, Nappe of Arsenale Nord, Venice, Italy (group)

IV Bienal Ciudad Juárez / El Paso Biennial 2015. Group exhibition. Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez and El Paso Museum of Art. October 11, 2015 – January 24, 2016. Curated by Eduardo Díaz, director of the Smithsonian Latino Center in Washington, D.C., and Santiago Espinosa de los Monteros, curator, museographer and art critic in Mexico City.

Istanbul Light Festival, November 13–29, 2015. Zorlu Center, Istanbul, Turkey. Festival Director: Murat Patavi.

SUR: Biennial. Group exhibition. Cerritos College Art Gallery. October 8 – November 20, 2015. Curated by James MacDevitt.

Realspace, Williamson Gallery, Pasadena, October 3, 2014 – January 18, 2015, curated by Stephen Nowlin.

BREART: Residencies4art, part of Brerart Contemporary Art Week, Herman Miller Gallery, Milan, Italy. October 23–27, 2013, curated by Chiara Canali.