works
El Rey Blanco
hearth
zines
A cinq cents métres de l’effondrement (2022)
Arriver au port et attendre que la ville s’éveille (2021)
Tout ce qui pend d’un fil (2016)
Pianos en Arabia (2014)
about
contact
works
El Rey Blanco
hearth
zines
A cinq cents métres de l’effondrement (2022)
Arriver au port et attendre que la ville s’éveille (2021)
Tout ce qui pend d’un fil (2016)
Pianos en Arabia (2014)
about
contact
“Se llevaron la plata y el oro, nos dejaron espejitos de colores”
“They took the silver and gold, they left us colored mirrors” (popular saying in South America)
The project takes its title from a South American colonial legend, according to which, by traveling up a great river, one reached the domains of a monarch who ruled from a mountain of silver. This story marked the beginning of a race to exhaust the continent's resources for the benefit of foreign interests.
Yesterday, the legendary mountain was none other than Cerro Potosí in Bolivia, a triangular mound known for being one of the most important silver mines in history, emptied during the Spanish occupation. Five hundred years later, this same extractivist race continues in another triangular form: the lithium triangle, an area located between Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, where more than 65% of the world's reserves of this white metal are found.
In this mix-media project, drived through a strong dreamlike visual component and retracing the path of the Spanish colonizers, I draw a parallelism between the two triangles and question the exploitation of natural resources, its human, economic and environmental consequences.
“Silver Vein” - sculpture: Rock, silvery metal, 2024
“Open Veins” duo show at PhMuseum Lab (05 Dec 2024 - 23 Jan 2025) along with Sarah Schneider and Stella Meyer, curated by Camilla Marrese and Giuseppe Oliverio. Credits : Rosa Lacavalla - PhMuseum
“The Lithium Triangle worth a Potosi”
5 pure silver coins - 6.67 g each.
Paris, France, 2024 - 1/1
Inspired by one of the coins minted with silver from the Cerro de Potosi in the same city by the Spanish during the occupation of South America, I have recreated 5 coins totally made in silver that keeps in the face the original minted model, with the year of the presumed discovery of the hill by the aboriginal Diego Huallpa in 1545. In the mint, as if echoing that they are the two faces of the same coin, I reproduce the silhouette of the 5 most important Lithium deposits in Latin America, adding their name and the phrase “Vale un Potosi” which in Hispanic voice refers to something that contains an extraordinary wealth. In low relief, each coin is crossed by lines, which when put together, form a triangle, making reference to the fact that, The Lithium Triangle is worth a Potosi.
“Illusion” - 20 x 25 cm
Lithium-Silver Wet Plate reproduction. 2025
This reproduction is made with the wet collodion technique, in which silver salts and lithium salts (the two main metals of the project) were used to reproduce the image.
Showcased on:
FISHEYE
PhMuseum
Little Stories x Diversion Studio
PhMuseum Lab
Der_Greif x Rencontres d’Arles - Screening “Face to Face” - Rencontres d’Arles, 2024