Life in the Folds, 2017

Audiovisual Installation
 work presented in the Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Biennial.

Life in the Folds is the project by Carlos Amorales for the Mexican Pavilion, to represent this country in the 57th Venice Biennale. The exhibition comprises three works installed in a subtle manner, which evoke concentration on detail and meaning. It opens with seven poems written in an encrypted alphabet created by the artist with abstract three-dimensional shapes. The texts displayed on tables, that formally refer us to paper sheets, imply a transition from the typographic to the phonetic. Since each letter is a ceramic wind musical instrument, also known as ocarina that, when played, releases a specific sound. This coded language can be interpreted verbally, but can also be played as music. A graphic musical score, mounted around the walls of the pavilion, can be interpreted with instruments placed on the tables. In resonance with the elements exposed, this script made solely with a copying machine, is also written with the abstract shapes on simple paper sheets. Abstraction and figuration, as well as music and text, come together in the film The cursed village, which narrates the story of a migrant family that is lynched as they arrive to a foreign town. In it, a puppeteer controls the characters and a music ensemble playing the ocarinas, interprets the soundtrack, dialogues, and soundscape of the film. A notable gesture is the wall text written in first person and signed by Amorales, where he states the political discourse behind the subtleness of this installation.