Ernesto Bautista
Construction of the Cities of Memory,2018, digital film, 17:22 min.
TheCube Project Space
For Construction of the Cities of Memory, Ernesto Bautista interviewed some of his closest friends, asking them about the first houses they lived in, or the first houses they lost. Based on these oral histories, the artist created a 3D rendering of a virtual city with all the houses his friends remember, houses that no longer exist for them, but exist again in this new alternative reality.
The project refers to houses from the past that were once the homes of his friends and are now just a memory—houses that were lost due to forced displacements, divorces, violence, or even changes like new family members.
Bautista’s virtual city grows with every new house that his friends tell him about, capturing what is important to them about these homes, and how all of us relate to spaces and objects. It shows how our bodies find comfort in a room, a couch, a person. Construction of the Cities of Memory is a portrait of the most intimate space we have, our home. The work encourages us to think about who we were in the past and how we will construct new memories in our current spaces.
－Curator｜Josseline Pinto
Ernesto Bautista
(b. 1987, Santa Ana, El Salvador; based in Mexico City, Mexico) Works and produces in El Salvador. Founder member of The Fire Theory. For Bautista the image is a mental construction. He points to a series of connections since the use of recognizable signs from their immediate perception to acquire through their interactions, new connotations and human dimensions, through a scheme that defines a complex situation of mismatch. He seeks for a dialogue through contrasts related with what at first glance may seem contradictory or absurd, but at the same time can be a poem or a speech on the restructured element itself.
Curator : Josseline Pinto
(1996, Guatemala) An independent curator, educator and poet based in Guatemala City. Co-founder and director of the independent space MANIFESTO-espacio. She is currently an educational curator for Fundación Nacional para las Bellas Artes y la Cultura FUNBA. She also teaches Art History at La Fototeca and at the Escuela Municipal de Artes Visuales. Previously, she co-coordinated the art education program Laboratorio de Arte Contemporáneo at Fundación Paiz. Her essays are published in the book Darío Escobar Ensayos Dispersos (2019) and Agentes Culturales (2016), as well as in magazines such as Arte al Día, Artishock, Revista Gimnasia and esQuisses. Her recent curatorial projects include: Ernesto Bautista: Un vacío infinito llenándose con la memoria (Galería Valenzuela Klenner, Bogotá, Colombia, 2019), the group show Después de mí el sueño (MANIFESTO-espacio, 2018); Jason Mena: Victoria sobre el sol (2017), among others. She was selected for the program “Programa de Formación Curatorial” at TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica and for the Curatorial Intensive Mexico City, Independent Curators International. Her work revolves around the study and manifestation of the poetic image and the artistic process as a tool for educational mediation.
