Luis Andrés Serrano

why do you think i can’t dream of you anymore? (2023)

I had fun combining the various materials I collected for the overall project. The acetate has yelp reviews and facebook comments about the mall printed onto them. It also has printed scans of myself scanning the acetate that have the reviews. I was really focused on the idea of memories folding into themselves and also being physical layers that are weirdly cobbled together. The acetate is sewn onto pieces of watercolour paper that had a cyanotype solution washed onto them. Bits of fabric, glass and string debris can be found inbetween the acetate and paper, making a sort of memory sandwich. Compared to the specimens piece in the same project, this piece is more embellished. I consider it more like windows on a wall.

This piece is a part of my research into my local mall for my residency at James Black Gallery. It was exhibited during Please Hold- alongside my cohort's work. I specifically focused on the portion of the mall that was demolished in 2013 during the mall's renovation. I was interested in the ideas of fabricated memories and media preservation, especially when it is compared to our present day saturation of vlogs and tagging systems and media advertising public locations. The portion of the mall that I was interested in seemed to have 0 video preservation aside from one Youtube video that wasn't even directly taken in that location, instead using that portion as a background for only 3 seconds. As for photos, there is practically 0 of them aside from a few photos of the outside. Do demolished buildings get an afterlife?