When my Grandfather Visited the Crater
1973 - 2022
Video Installation of 2 channels (15:44 min)
Installation view at Centro de la Imagen CDMX, Photoseptiembre "Territories" 2022
Installation View at Performance Space, Visual Arts Facility University of California San Diego, 2019
Process in collaboration with my post-human grandfather: the scientist Jose A. Zorrilla. After 18 years of his death I dreamed of him. The next day I found a reel of super 8 film that he recorded when they visited some mayan archeological sites from Yucatan. Parallel, I was using a microscope to film water and matter from the cenotes that form the fifth ring of Chicxulub crater. I was investigating the region that received the asteroid that provoked the dinosaur metamorphosis when the mammals evolved therefore the human species arose.
My grandfather traveled in 1973, secretly he wanted to remember a research that he was part of many years ago. They were looking for the relation of Mayan cosmology with matter, life and empty space. He was also remembering that planets are alive and they interact with us as planet Earth, mixing their chemical elements provoking changes of different scales in time.
I tried to communicate with my late grandfather through letters, and he responded with his photographic archive and documents. This is how I understood that he tried to forget about his research because of my grandmother's religion. During our dialogue he felt free to share many things that he learned of Mayan beliefs and colonialism effects. This knowledge was repressed when he was alive. With our conversation we conclude that living beings are fragments of planet Earth.
Video Installation in the Center of the Image