Teresa Margolles

06.10.2012 — 06.01.2013

The Promise

Teresa Margolles’ work is marked by her interest in the social and political context of Mexico and the way this defines individuals. The Promise, a site-specific project created for MUAC, forms part of a lengthy investigation begun years ago by Margolles in Ciudad Juárez.

The artist questions the possibility of rootedness in a place that, as a border city, has historically been transformed from a place of transit into a place of promise and opportunity in its own right by the arrival of the huge assembly plants. A significant percentage of the population of Juárez are migrants from other states of Mexico who came in search of work and managed to settle there, but the wave of violence, the economic crisis and unemployment have generated a new migration, forcing people out of the city and into a state of internal displacement.

Since 2007, some 160,000 Mexicans have fled their homes as a result of the violence, and in the case of Ciudad Juárez this represents over 115,000 empty houses, most of them in suburban neighborhoods and residential developments.

The Promise emerged from this panorama of unfulfilled promises. For this project, Margolles took an abandoned low-income house in Ciudad Juárez, had it dismantled, and sent the debris to Mexico City, where it was further milled into tiny pieces.

The care with which the process was carried out is meant to contrast with the systematic destruction and abandonment to which the city has been subjected. In the exhibition space the installation is activated by a group of people who help to transfer the residue of the house, gradually covering the surface of the hall.

The action takes place for one hour each day over six months. An archive comprising videos, texts and articles about the problems raised by the project, together with copies of the city’s newspapers: El Norte, El Diario, El Mexicano and PM (from February to June 2012) is presented in the Arkheia Documentation Center.