Cuarto de Estar / Living Room (2021)

In Cuarto de Estar, I am examining what it means to stitch together family, community, and memory across time and distance. The project centers on my paternal grandparents’ home—built in Colonia Anzures in Mexico City in the 1940s—long after they emigrated to Mexico from Poland.

Cuarto de Estar began with memories of conversations with my abue Gucha sitting by her dresser mirror, laughing together at the kitchen table, her teaching me to cut a mango into a flower. I remember feeling the brick-red tiles of her backroom, tracing the hallways, walking into morning fog on her roof.

Through creating a composite, iterative portrait of this home, I am drawing on traces from the past—in the form of photographs, stories, archives—to invite reflection and speculation on the present and future. To date, Cuarto de Estar has taken the forms of wall coverings based on paintings, and large sculptures featuring layered photo transfers and integrating vintage mirrors, steel bases, and custom-cut MDF boards.

The first iteration of Cuarto de Estar was commissioned by Bridge Projects for We are all guests here, an exhibition of art installations made in response to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and related themes including the cyclical history of migration.

Installation: wallpaper for two 20’ wide x 10’ tall walls; four sculptures with vintage mirrors, photo transfers, graphite rubbing. Sculpture dimensions variable, approximately 4 feet wide x 7 feet tall

Fabrication of steel bases by Dan Gulick, MDF boards cut by Erik Petersen, installation photography by Robert Wedemeyer 

Commissioned by Bridge Projects for We are all guests here. Curated by Bridge Projects’ team Cara Megan Lewis, Linnéa Gabriella Spransy Neuss, Vicki Phung Smith, and Michael Wright