Benvenuto Chavajay Gonzalez

Installation (Installation)

Jardín (2013) refers to environmental destruction, specifically the preponderance of disposable plastics, as well as Medellín’s long history of dangerous conflict; it was once considered the most violent city in the world because of the drug trafficking there. This floor sculpture consists of shoes made of river stones, strung with flip-flop straps. Here, Chavajay plays the natural (found stones) against the synthetic (plastic), heavy against light, hard against soft, revealing the irony of their fusion and the impossibility of their alleged function as shoes.