Patricia Villalobos Echeverría

Current Position:
Professor, Art Department; Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Website: www.patriciavillalobos.com

Statement
Recent installations, prints, depict the human form floating, dispersed, unattached, hovering over indeterminate waters, at the edge of territory(ies).  In the installations, the projected image layers over sculptural forms hung either in a space or directly onto architectural structures. The layered video projection reflects the essence of a condition of instability.  The ever-changing nature of the image, which is impermanent, fleeting and unstable, mirrors the condition of our everyday lives.

The sculptural forms become the space between the body and the geographical space or site, in a material way, in the installation.  It becomes a third space that is not entirely the conceptual space, nor the psychological space, but a space of connectivity or dis-connectivity --- pointing to a new terrain: the space of physicality for the intangible projected layer that hovers over the space. This third space creates a dialogue between both sides of sculptural matrices, referencing landmines, cells, and in some cases moons. 

In the most recent work, the works juxtapose the floating human body, with images of mass movements for and against institutional power within the context of globalization and post-capitalism.  The duality or juxtaposition of the body(ies) is also present in earlier work where moving images depict the body on alternate substances: Pacific & Atlantic coasts, North American and South American coasts and in water as well as snow.

I am particularly interested in how the questions posed by the discourse of (post)humanity and de(materialization) re-define both body and site. Via sound/video and installations my work engages these concepts using personal texts and images parting from a shared experience of war and natural disasters. I attempt to give voice to the divergent transcultural body.