Christian Salablanca
Geometría del Centro, 2020

Installation with single-channel video (color, with sound design by Daniel Lara Ballesteros, camera and editing by Sebastián Mira), 14 charcoal sculptures, 14 charcoal drawings on paper
14 min (video)
18 x 18 x 5 cm (sculpture, each)
75 x 50 cm (drawing, each)
Overall dimensions variable
Commissioned and produced by FLORA ars+natura and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary for st_age

The work of Costa Rican artist Christian Salablanca focuses on the phenomena of violence and the ways in which it produces, determines, and conditions history, society, and politics. His production methods function as field studies and are concerned with territories and populations in Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Salablanca’s interdisciplinary works attempt to create a radical reflection on the cultural relations of violent systems: from the human to the animal, from the word to symbolic memory, and from the centres of power to the margins. 
 
Geometría del centro (Geometry of the Centre), 2020, emerged from a field trip Salablanca undertook in 2020, along with five artist colleagues and the team from FLORA ars-natura, to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range in northern Colombia that is home to the Koguis, Arhuacos, Wiwas, and Kankuamos peoples. The group visited the Terunna—an ancient ceremonial city also known as Ciudad Perdida, the lost city. This remote and uniquely spiritual place is formed by a series of stone terraces and circular plazas. Salablanca was struck by the similarities between this location and the mounds and foundations of the Guayabo Monument, a largely unexplored archaeological site in central Costa Rica.
 
Imagined as a “video poem” that integrates audio designs by the sound artist Daniel Lara Ballesteros as well as fragments of text, Geometría del centro (Geometry of the Centre) explores the formal and conceptual relationship between these two ancient places. It records the making of a series of drawings. These paper inscriptions take shape through the use of charcoal tools whose forms recall pillars or instruments for measurement, such as plumb bobs. 
 
On his installation at Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza, the video is accompanied by the actual drawings and tools used by Salablanca to draw different cartographies based in the sacred geometry. 
 
These indigenous peoples have managed to preserve their languages and their ancestral customs, and have a clear understanding of their purpose in this world: namely, to maintain the balance of the Earth. With this work Salablanca is claiming the right of these people to be listened to and dives deep into the water mythology of the earth formation, understood by the Koguis, Arhuacos, Wiwas, and Kankuamos as coming from the water. Therefore the project claims a better understanding of the underwater world (SDG no. 14) but, also the right to live in the land as a basic right for indigenous people (goals no. 15 and no. 16). This defense makes the project being framed under Displaced histories and deviant practices’ topic.

PAST LOANS 

Group show: El pasado adelante 
Institution: AECID - Dirección de Relaciones Culturales y Científicas
Venue: Casa de América, Madrid
Curators: Ricardo Ramón Jarné, Tamara Díaz Bringas
November 18, 2021 - February 5, 2022

Exhibition: When in Doubt, Go to a Museum
Venue: City Museum of Ljubljana
Curators: team from the City Museum of Ljubljana, with Tevž Logar as guest curator
January 21, 2021 - April 25, 2021

Christian Salablanca (Costa Rica, 1990)  is a graduate of the sculpture department of the School of Art and Visual Communication of the National University of Costa Rica. He has undertaken residencies at Pivô Pesquisa (São Paulo, Brazil), Sagrada Mercancía (Santiago, Chile), Cráter Invertido (Mexico City, Mexico), Kiosko Galería (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia), Despacio (San José, Costa Rica), and Espira La Espora (Managua, Nicaragua). His artistic research is focused on the phenomena of violence and the different ways in which it produces, determines, and conditions historical, social, and political subjects. His production methods function as affective encounters and are concerned with territories and populations in Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Salablanca’s interdisciplinary works attempt to create a radical reflection on the cultural relations of violent systems: from the human to the animal, from the word to symbolic memory, and from the centres of power to the periphery.