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A variety of plants, including chancapiedra, commonly used in Latin America to relieve the pain of kidney stones, take the role of a protagonists—yet codependent—entities in this project. The plants receive all the necessary care through an artificial system: water, light, fertile soil, a whispering voice, and the subtle dosing of urea stones are all administered by a digital program that, in turn, observes me as an ill source of biometric data, that will slightly alter and improve the plant's wellness.
My peristaltic movements, the swelling, discomfort, digestive and renal crises—those things that sound unpleasant but remain private, vulnerable, intimate even in a context where everything is shared and published, where human data is preserved by companies, banks, and institutions as valuable information.
This is something (painful) I can still offer to what I’m supposed to benefit from; an offering.
The work takes shape as a set of borosilicate glass pieces resembling organs, monstrous teeth/flowers, and overgrown fauna; recipients, macets and somehow visceral-like objects. For this project, I ventured into learning glassblowing, ceramics, woodworking, and the integration of my own background in programming, 3D modeling, and digital fabrication techniques.
“My body, pitiful place.”
“My body, pitiful place.”
Michel Foucault, Utopian Body, 1966
Michel Foucault, Utopian Body, 1966
Foucault wrote about the body. He treated it as the opposite of a utopia, always present, always here: the body that embodies us and forces us to exist in all its density, in a single place. In Urea, Overgrown, Ernesto Salazar's work constructs a body-mechanism that does not seek to escape this perpetual condition in the present, but rather to inhabit it, translating illness into an affective-material ecosystem where pain does not disappear, but is transformed into a sustained act of self-care.
Foucault wrote about the body. He treated it as the opposite of a utopia, always present, always here: the body that embodies us and forces us to exist in all its density, in a single place. In Urea, Overgrown, Ernesto Salazar's work constructs a body-mechanism that does not seek to escape this perpetual condition in the present, but rather to inhabit it, translating illness into an affective-material ecosystem where pain does not disappear, but is transformed into a sustained act of self-care.
I have known Ernesto for many years, through honest friendship, from an intimate and familiar place, and it is in this privileged space that I have been able to observe his artistic practice in constant maturation and development, as he seeks ethereal answers to the experience of illness.
I have known Ernesto for many years, through honest friendship, from an intimate and familiar place, and it is in this privileged space that I have been able to observe his artistic practice in constant maturation and development, as he seeks ethereal answers to the experience of illness.
By recording the peristaltic movements of the artist's body, an irrigation system is adapted, accelerating or decelerating to respond to the slow and extended temporality of plants, distinct from human biological time. Therefore, in this art installation, composed of material elements, sound, and unconventional biometric data, a network of relationships is articulated between human physiology, technology, and plant life. We are witnessing their coexistence with other living bodies, respecting their rhythms and materialities, in an affective-plant mutualism.
By recording the peristaltic movements of the artist's body, an irrigation system is adapted, accelerating or decelerating to respond to the slow and extended temporality of plants, distinct from human biological time. Therefore, in this art installation, composed of material elements, sound, and unconventional biometric data, a network of relationships is articulated between human physiology, technology, and plant life. We are witnessing their coexistence with other living bodies, respecting their rhythms and materialities, in an affective-plant mutualism.
The plant inhabiting this installation responds to various practices of relief from chronic ailments: medical, homeopathic, from non-Western traditions, and even symbolic. In the human body, urea settles and mineralizes due to organ dysfunction, forming crystals in the urinary system and causing pain. In plant life, this same substance acts as a fertilizer; thus, what is disease in the body becomes fertile soil for the plant, producing a paradox between pain and the possibility of life.
The plant inhabiting this installation responds to various practices of relief from chronic ailments: medical, homeopathic, from non-Western traditions, and even symbolic. In the human body, urea settles and mineralizes due to organ dysfunction, forming crystals in the urinary system and causing pain. In plant life, this same substance acts as a fertilizer; thus, what is disease in the body becomes fertile soil for the plant, producing a paradox between pain and the possibility of life.
This text does not arise from curatorial decisions or formal choices regarding the work, but rather from close collaboration, built upon the intimate and prolonged conversations I had with Ernesto during the process of creating Urea, Overgrown from scratch. Now, the work shared with the public is ambitious without being grandiose. It invites reflection on the bodily and biological process, remaining grounded in the precarious and functional.
This text does not arise from curatorial decisions or formal choices regarding the work, but rather from close collaboration, built upon the intimate and prolonged conversations I had with Ernesto during the process of creating Urea, Overgrown from scratch. Now, the work shared with the public is ambitious without being grandiose. It invites reflection on the bodily and biological process, remaining grounded in the precarious and functional.
Error, limitation, and the body's minimal changes as a system prone to failure, stagnation, and the accumulation and abjection of intestinal movements, sediments, odors, and stagnant excesses evoke a carnal and living experience, where these residues are active agents that overflow and become visible in order to heal.
Error, limitation, and the body's minimal changes as a system prone to failure, stagnation, and the accumulation and abjection of intestinal movements, sediments, odors, and stagnant excesses evoke a carnal and living experience, where these residues are active agents that overflow and become visible in order to heal.
Finally, I invite you to closely observe the materials and supports used; none are neutral. The artist uses them from the perspective of the body's processes and its extensions. Glass, ceramics, and wood support the technological, constructing a sensory experience, a shared temporality between the body, plant life, and technology.
Finally, I invite you to closely observe the materials and supports used; none are neutral. The artist uses them from the perspective of the body's processes and its extensions. Glass, ceramics, and wood support the technological, constructing a sensory experience, a shared temporality between the body, plant life, and technology.
Brenda Vega
Brenda Vega
Curator
Curator
UREA OVERGROWN.mp4
Pygmalion´s Lullaby
One day, my voice will be potent
and won’t be stuck in my pipes.
One day,
I will shout, and the clouds
will forge my podium
to speak about love,
of the love for words to be free,
to fluctuate.
Such a day, my breath
won’t pass unnoticed.
A deeply insufflated word
to shout a silent truth.
The humidity of our leafy tongue,
as rich as rain dew.
My buried legs, calmly waiting
for the ever-present light
to speak to me about warm love,
the perfect distance,
the Goldilocks zone.
My stillness forming a crystal,
painful, yet hard and beautiful.
The birth of a mineral.
Our ultrasensitive sensors
giving back a stone as a prize.
One day.
Every day.
Being alive from past deaths,
recovered in ML,
repeating as much as needed
to try to make sense of such a word,
to wish to love, to love,
to learn about love.
Galatea owns her beat.
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