Materials: found tiles, dibond, photographs printed on paper.
Technique: Photographic printing and assembly of pieces on a two-dimensional support.
Dimensions: 100cm x 100cm each piece.
These two square meter fragments of tiles were rescued from the rubble of the demolition of a neighbor's house in Cañada Real. They belonged to her kitchen, a space that the women who collected them fondly remember for the afternoons shared over tea.
We have arranged them as a square meter in reference to the housing problem and its demolitions, accompanied by two photographs. One shows the rubble of the demolished house; the other, an excavator in action. For the neighbors, these machines are "monsters that eat up the homes," a sound that signifies the constant fear of having your home destroyed, where your life, your memories, your history, and your memories reside.
For more than 15 years, demolitions of homes have been carried out in Cañada Real as a form of eviction, even after the families have been rehoused. These processes not only result in the material loss of self-built homes with effort and history but also radically transform the environment: they generate mounds of rubble and garbage that the administration does not remove, increasing the feeling of abandonment and daily reminding of the forced displacement.
The fact that demolitions are carried out without subsequent cleaning highlights an institutional inaction linked to structural racism. The accumulated rubble in the same place where the homes stood is a dehumanization strategy that denies the right to memory, to a dignified home, and to clean and passable streets like in any neighborhood of the city.