FALLEN

everyone is fallen except us fallen…

This work is a response to the 1973 Chilean military coup, an event which impacted on Monica Martinez’s personal history. The cenotaph that emerged honours those that were silenced, those who were exiled—and the endurance of those who remained behind. At its creation this work was meant to evolve and at the end of its journey, it was meant to return to Chile—return to the sands of the Atacama that helped spark its beginning.

Monica Martinez’s vibrant forms were created at the University of Manitoba School of Art Ceramics Building.

The creation of the forms took months of painstaking labour where the process of making became as important as the finished fired forms. This durational work consumed Monica’s life as it continued hour after hour, day after day right up to the night before the first installation. Her mind’s constant processing of the images, readings, and her own inherited memories of the 1973 Chilean Coup as well as the resulting diaspora would at times interrupt the repetitive making. The powerful and unexpected emotions conjured by the very act of forming the sculptures disturbed Monica so deeply that she would cease working for days, but the need to finish compelled her to deal with the past and the present.

Visit Martinez’s website for more.