ARSON
FROM THE SERIES: TOTALITARIAN ABC-DARY


VIDEO INSTALLATION IN A DARKENED ROOM: THREE HIGH- DEFINITION COLOR VIDEO PROJECTIONS; ABIENT SPEAKERS, DOLBY 5.1. DIGITAL SOUND.. 
SANTA INÉS AHUATEMPAN, PUEBLA, MEXICO. 


2020


In Totalitarian ABC-dary, I use drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, and video to reflect on systems of control linked to territory. The project is inspired by the borders of totalitarian states, particularly those of former Czechoslovakia, where I was born. These heavily guarded borders were constructed with wooden fences and barbed wire.

The border structures and their meshes adopted specific forms, which I appropriate as signs and re-signify as letters—most notably “Y,” “I,” “X,” and “T.” Starting from a specific territory, the research expands toward universal questions related to freedom, borders, and migration; ultimately, toward the passage between nations and systems of power.

In Arson, I create sculptural wooden objects shaped as the four fundamental letters of this alphabet: “Y,” “X,” “T,” and “I.” These sculptures are conceived to be burned.

Through fire, the work simultaneously reveals and destroys the symbols and signs of power inscribed in the territory. Combustion functions as a performative and political act: a gesture of resistance that transforms devices of control into ash, questioning both the permanence of borders and the authority they represent.