NADA

“During a residency at Flora ars+natura Bogotá, I began collecting car air filters. These filters contain a paper membrane that resembles an accordion which functions as a receptacle for the internal emissions of the engine. I have used them as a medium to create a series of sculptures and drawings, some of them retractable, which when contracted hide in the gaps of the membrane, and on the reverse, when expanded, they are fused with the smoke and oil that remains embedded in the filter.

Similar to the work I have conducted previously through other investigations, I am interested in triggering a pragmatic archaeological process where the deteriorated materials I have collected acquire a preponderant aesthetic dimension that does not nullify their origin. On the contrary, this re-utilization of the material allows me to raise some questions about the implications of the accelerated cycles of production, consumption and waste that are so typical of our times.

By taking advantage of the paper membranes that are housed inside the filters, subtle abstractions appear that mimic the corrugated ergonomics of the material.

The visual result is a set of pieces that by the disposition and identity of the materials, as well as by their visual references, try to encourage suspicion about the apparent neatness of things, as well as to reverse the sense of the abstract geometric tradition whose aspirations decontaminated from the social environment that I would like to question.”

— Adán Vallecillo