Art Installations

Los hijos de la Schengada, 2024

450 copies of migration file (visa refusals, letters, scans, proof of address, contracts, insurance, scholarships, registrations, etc.), 4 sachets of corn-starch, cane sugar, vinegar, 2 tweeters, 2 drivers, synthetic wool, cables, 50w amplifier, 27' sound recording of telephone menus and hold music resampled and re interpreted by the artist.

23 x 29 x 16 cm each

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Like a migration checkpoint at the entrance to the exhibition, this work, whose frequencies have no borders, confronts us with the violence of the reality of the migrant experience. The speakers are completely made out of paper veneers bonded together from copies of the artist's administrative file, assembled with corn glue. They broadcast extracts from these official documents, and telephone menus from the various institutions involved in this process: the police headquarters, the consulate, , embassies, lawyers, the health insurance office.

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White man in Mexico, stigmatised Mexican in Europe, Suricata questions his own identity, and highlights the ambiguity of national identity narra-tives. He is a son of the chingada, a Mexican expression analysed by the writer Octavio Paz in El laberinto de la soledad (1950) as a reference to a mythical maternal figure, a form of wounded, raped Malinche. It alludes to an idea of violence, and underlines an identity paradox: Mexicans insult their own mother, in a way that affirms an identity that they contradict and degrade. Suricata highlights the language interactions at the heart of control mechanisms, and the complex issues of translation and communication at work in these exchanges between speakers with unequal linguistic resources, where misunderstandings shape lives. This sound sculpture becomes a medium, an invitation to listen and a tool for political protest through sound.