Within the framework of Untitled – Miami, I proposed an installation that pretends to be a wall lined with bricks that are actually made of 100 salmon-colored canvases. This wall makes direct reference to the historical use of brick as an essential and predominant material in Bogota architecture and whose origins date back to pre-colonial pottery techniques. In this sense, brick is a foundational material, even narrative, which accounts for the transition from traditional craft knowledge to an urban project of development and modernity. Somehow the brick condenses long processes of cultural hybridization and makes the "wall" a familiar and common landscape derived from these historical and geological processes.
In addition to their symbolic nature around architecture and landscape, these bricks offer a critical look at the banking and construction sectors in Colombia. Hence its title, Ladrillos UPAC, which refers to the UPAC system (unit of constant purchasing power) –used in Brazil and later implemented in Colombia in 1972 to calculate Housing loans–, whose consequences were the high indebtedness of the Colombian middle class and the consequent loss of homeownership. The bricks are, to some extent, a representation of these units but also an analogous and material version of the NFTs that, although they do not have a direct relationship with the real estate market or the banking system, do respond to similar logics.
︎︎︎ Invest in the system
Untitled Art (Miami 2021)
In addition to their symbolic nature around architecture and landscape, these bricks offer a critical look at the banking and construction sectors in Colombia. Hence its title, Ladrillos UPAC, which refers to the UPAC system (unit of constant purchasing power) –used in Brazil and later implemented in Colombia in 1972 to calculate Housing loans–, whose consequences were the high indebtedness of the Colombian middle class and the consequent loss of homeownership. The bricks are, to some extent, a representation of these units but also an analogous and material version of the NFTs that, although they do not have a direct relationship with the real estate market or the banking system, do respond to similar logics.
︎︎︎ Invest in the system
Untitled Art (Miami 2021)