DEVASTATED

devastated
video installation
floor-to-ceiling projection and 2 mechanical floor pieces
variable dimensions

And after a hurricane, a devastated area. Eugenio’s artistic research sometimes takes on, as here, a somewhat more pessimistic tone with the combative message that characterizes him. The bleakness of the title becomes even more incisive when we see a bloody vinyl on the ceiling from which the projected words seem to drip. And once again, it connects with the series Where to Sleep, but now the familiar red sacks crawl across the floor like worms. On this occasion, the sacks inhabit the space with unease. The work alludes to the term “devastated regions” used by the fascist army to name the areas most destroyed in the uprising, in most cases by themselves, and for which the Franco regime later created the well-known DGRD, or General Directorate of Devastated Regions, with the mission of rebuilding infrastructure, artistic monuments, and homes in an effort to shape a “new Spain.”
Thus, the sacks also remind us of those worn by soldiers, those sacks of fighting spirit that inhabit the space with restlessness. Here, no one sleeps anymore, and the wrappings are more reminiscent of a pair of larvae that speak to the health of our environment, insisting on the idea of an uncomfortable plastic metaphor…

Blanca de la Torre