SANTIAGO REYES VILLAVECES

The project “Brujitas” presented by the Colombian artist Santiago Reyes Villaveces researches a latent architectural sensibility that is evident in precarious structures; mostly visible in—but not limited to—everyday urban life in Latin American cities. The architectural mediations and structures of informal economies that he addresses relate urban detritus, overlooked by-products of construction, to improvised temporary structures, underscoring a latent sophistication in anonymous ways of doing. Sculptures, drawings, and photographs contribute to this project, addressing different relations of temporal indetermination.

For his degree show at the Royal College of Art, Reyes presents a ‘family’ of push cars made out of urban detritus and recycled ball bearings. ‘Brujitas’(witches) is the popular name given to this type of cars in Colombia–. The Brujitas are working tools use to generate value in the mobility and transport of goods. These structures embody a form in which a sophisticated ‘simple’ structure articulates a way of assimilating and resisting the informal economies that arise in the voids of the ‘official’ economic system. The artist activates these vehicles in the urban context of their place of production, such as London (UK), Dubai (UEA) and Ambalema (Colombia) and their documentations and deployments are presented as an installation, entitled Brujitas.

Royal College of Art
Show RCA Fine Art 2017
24 June–3 July, 2017
12 noon – 8pm daily

Hester Road / Howie Street
London SW11 4AY