El reino de este mundo

El Reino de este mundo is an installation composed of several elements: a wall built with concrete blocks that agglomerate debris from a demolished family house. The wall projects a shadow formed with scattered debris on the Museum floor.

Facing this wall, on the other side of the room, several photographs of a house are placed, as well as a text that narrates an encounter that took place during the process of creating the project: while collecting the material for the installation, the artist came across a woman who was gathering materials from among the debris at that same location and cleaning them by hand, removing the cement, plaster, and paint from each brick, in order to later build her house with them.

In the exhibition room, both constructions are placed facing each other. Also the text of the account by this woman named Fanny, speaking about the experience.

THE ENCOUNTER WITH FANNY

(Text installed on the wall)

Fanny: What are you looking for? You won't find anything here anymore. I already took everything good from what this house used to be. One day I realized I could no longer keep paying rent. I had a plot of land left. The next day I went out walking through the neighborhood and passed by this house where I had lived some years before. They were demolishing it; it was already on the ground. Standing there, looking at it, the idea came to me. I asked an older man who was beside me: would that brick be for sale? How much would they ask for it? He was the owner of the demolition and he asked me: how much will you give me?

In the end he said take it, it's a gift. I went back happy and told my daughter: you look after the baby, and I'm off to clean brick. That was the first day.

On the second day I arrived at the demolition at seven in the morning. I asked one of the men doing the tearing down: Maestro, how do you clean brick? —With a chisel and a mallet. He set about teaching me, and that day I cleaned thirty bricks.

On the third day I didn't get as much done because my hands swelled up.

On the fourth day a neighbor appeared and brought me lunch. The owner came by and said: see that window? I'm giving it to you. See that door? I'm giving it to you.

On the fifth day my son took pity on me and showed up with two friends. They liked knocking down walls: they said it was a chance to get the rage out from inside. By four in the afternoon we already had brick and block.

On the sixth day the bricks seemed to multiply. Little by little I was turning dark, because all of it was under sun and wind.

On Sunday I came to the demolition with my daughter and the baby. We returned home at night, tired but happy. And so it went on through November, December, January, and February. Little by little I carried everything off to the plot. To those who helped me I said: I can't pay you. My gratitude will be that the day they throw you out of your house, you will have somewhere to go. And they laughed.

(Text composed from Fanny's testimony with the collaboration of the writer Laura Restrepo)