Adrián Balseca: Cambio de fuerza

Curated by Marco Scotini.

Within the framework of Artissima, on Friday, November 1, 2024, the PAV Parco Arte Vivente, will be presenting the first solo exhibition in Italy by the Ecuadorian artist Adrián Balseca (1989) curated by Marco Scotini. The exhibition is an investigation into the role of the human being as an actor within the ecosystem, focussing on the relationships between the economy, ecology and memory as well as on the dynamics of power linked to the extractivism and exploitation of nature.  

Operating by means of a number of narratives that combine real events, historic archives, ethno-fiction and memory, Adrián Balseca presents a series of projects, created over the past ten years, that focus on the local histories of his country of origin. In 2008, with the implementation of Article 71, Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognise nature as a subject with rights at a constitutional level: “Nature, or Pacha Mama, where life is reproduced and occurs, has the right to integral respect for its existence and for the maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions and evolutionary processes”. This new perspective was dependent on the wealth of indigenous populations present in the country who, claiming the right to be a much-needed voice while actively cooperating in decisions that relate to the lands in which they live, have contributed to the generation of a unique political and juridical reflection that has moved the focus from an anthropocentric to a biocentric view of rights. Despite the country’s constitution legally protecting all the areas with the most biodiversity on the planet, extraction activities have not diminished and neither has the inherent social and environmental damage they effect. Within this context, many thinkers in Ecuador have developed socio-economic concepts of degrowth, highlighting the biophysical limitations of the neo-liberal model and proposing other opportunities for development which aim to mitigate and reduce the impact that human beings’ actions have on climate change.

The exhibition’s title, Cambio de fuerza, refers to the slogan “La fuerza del cambio” [the power of change] used towards the end of the 1970s during Jaime Roldós Aguilera’s electoral campaign – the first president to be democratically elected after the period of dictatorship and who remained in position from 1979 to 1981. Redirecting the content of the expression, the artist asks himself how far it is possible to push this political “desire” to convert such hope of change into a more pragmatic idea, effectively extending it into the field of political ecology.

Balseca’s interest in this “power of change” was already visible in the work Medio Camino (2014) in which a 1977 Andino Miura, known as the first production line automobile made in Ecuador during the “petrol boom” years, is pushed by a group of people along the Pan-American motorway that crosses the country and links Alaska with Argentina. Inside the PAV’s greenhouse, is PLANTASIA OIL Co. (2021-ongoing), an installation consisting of barrels and cans that once contained motor oil and industrial lubricants produced by the Italian and transnational companies such as Shell, Total, Fiat and Agip. In these grow which various species of plants, inserting themselves into the detritus produced by the petrol economy that sees the city as a symbol of modernity, thereby highlighting the determination of nature to rebuild life amongst the thresholds and liminal spaces uninhabited by humans. The exhibition continues with The Unbalanced Land (2019), a sound installation that includes sculptural objects and a photographic series. The origin or this work lies in the travel account by the British scientist and explorer, Edward Whymper, Travels Amongst the Great Andes of the Equator (1892), which reflects on the history and transformations of the capitalist and colonial systems in Latin America. Balseca’s work examines the perceptive and representative models of the European colonial story and, in particular, the narratives of travel, creating a spatial-temporal fracture that connects the past and the present. Lastly, The Skin of Labour (2016) is an installation that derives from the observation of an endemic forest of Heva Brasiliensis (rubber plants) present in the vital territory of Amazonian Ecuador where, with the rise of the rubber industry which began at the end of the 19th century, the indigenous lands were expropriated for the purpose of extracting the derivates of this vegetable species. The installation calls into question the fundamental values that lie behind the exploitation of nature by humans as well as its impact on the technicization of labour.

By starting with the specific nature of Ecuador’s ecosystems, Adrián Balseca’s exhibition, Cambio de fuerza, raises questions of global relevance, revealing the environmental and cultural responsibilities of Western, neo-liberal economies through the deconstruction of colonial narratives and the condemnation of the dynamics of power and exploitation.

Adrián Balseca (Quito, Ecuador, 1989). Lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Some of his most recent exhibitions are: Nyctalopia (Void Art Centre, Derry, 2023); In Praise of Darkness, 55° Visions Du Réel International Film Festival (Nyon, 2024); Critical Landscapes: Selected Works from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection (MCA Denver, Denver, 2023); ROUTING RUBBER (New York, 2024; The genetically altered seed breaks the rhythm of an earthly music-Encounters over Several Plants (TATE Modern, London, 2022); Who Tells a Tale Adds a Tail: Latin America and Contemporary Art (Denver Art Museum, Denver, 2022); San Paolo 34th Biennale: Faz escuro mas eu canto (Padiglione Ciccillo Matarazzo, San Paolo, 2021); amongst others.

The exhibition, Cambio de fuerza, has been created in collaboration with Galeria Madragoa (Lisbon) and with the support of the Compagnia di San Paolo, the Fondazione CRT, the Regione Piemonte and the City of Turin.