Artworks

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From the artist: The technological advancement of production processes and the use of cheap labor during the industrial revolution not only destroyed ecosystems, it demolished traditional production methods. The damage was done in the name of channeling economic wealth and political power to the core nations. The Industrial Revolution sought improvements of quantity over quality of production and exacerbated social inequality and child slavery. It employed horrible factory conditions and cheap labor that still exists in sweatshops and maquiladoras throughout the world. Textile artisanship within many cultures is endangered due to the domineering footprint of the mass-market textile trade.

The manufacturing of automobiles pollutes local water supplies, with communities of lower social-economic status suffering the most. Many of the largest urban production centers in the United States also have the highest populations of marginalized black, brown and indigenous communities.

I wanted to create a life-size woven Volkswagen to highlight the harm done by industrialization. Environmental issues like land erosion and the exploitation and displacement of black, brown and indigenous people are legacies of this production. When we think of iconic objects and images in Mexican culture the Volkswagen always comes to mind. The seductive beauty, color and technological engineering hide a dark and violent past.

The Volkswagen was considered innovative during its time and become very popular throughout the world. However, its popularity came at the expense of environmental contamination and human rights violations. Created in Germany during 1930’s at the height of the Nazi regime, the technical innovation came at a time of massive genocide, experimentation, and sterilization of Jewish women and men in the name of science.

This work is about acknowledging the negative legacy of industrialization. A legacy that includes centuries of cultural exchange, but also the decline of indigenous languages and textile production methods, a dark history of rape, genocide, environmental deterioration, the creation of synthetic fibers and poor health conditions for women and men while working in industrial plantations/factories for the global consumption of the consumers, which includes all of us.