PELUDE TO A NON PLANNED ENCOUNTER

This installation consists of a map of the Atlantic Ocean made out from grains of corn The grains are arranged on the floor forming the shape of the ocean delineating the negative space between the coast of Spain and the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.Hanging from the ceiling, a curtain made from tea bags will be arranged to follow the navigational Route that Colon used during his first trip to America. This curtain will hover above the grains of corn.

The installation “Prelude to a non-planned encounter” deals with the theme of memory. It implements various mnemonic tactics to trigger histories of colonial trade; the flow of material culture between Europe and America; and also, the supposed misunderstanding that gave origin to their encounter, which has been elaborated and re-elaborated throughout the discourse of modern history.
In one level, it deals with the notion of “historic memory” by using Colon’s navigational route towards what he though would lead him to a more direct route to India, and of course increase the trade of tea and spices for the Kingdom of Spain. When in fact this new route, as we all know, took him to the coast of what is now known as San Salvador, and thus gave origin to endless encounters and mixes between races and cultures.
On another level, this installation also deals with the “individual memory” of the spectator by triggering its sense of smell with the tea bags. The area of the brain which perceives the sense of smell is located near to the area that perceives our “emotional memory”, this fact, makes the sense of smell very closely linked to our memory perception.
Lastly, “Prelude to a non-planned encounter” also approaches memory by way of its materials –that is the inherent memory carried by the tea bags and corn grains. Both of these materials are carriers of diverse cultural and historic meanings: the tea could be associated with South-Asian cultures and colonial trade and simultaneously, the grain of corn have become signifiers of pre-Hispanic cultures that prospered in the continental area which we now know as Latin America before the arrival of the Europeans.