Matadero Madrid center for contemporary creation

From January to June 2023

Raúl Silva

Rayos de luz del nuevo sol (Rays of Light from the New Sun)

Raúl Silva’s approach to this project is based on the construction of what was the first railway line in Peru (Lima, 1851) and possibly in South America. This railway line connected the capital with the port of Callao and was mainly financed by the sale of guano from the islands of Chincha as fertiliser. This guano was produced by exploiting Chinese slave labour and indigenous workers. Guano was in great demand as a fertiliser at that time and was sold mainly to England and the United States to enhance the productivity of land that had to feed the growing working class in the midst of the industrial revolution. Working with graphic archives associated with the construction of the railway and the extraction of guano, the artist presents a speculative metaphor: that of thinking about the construction of material lines of connection with a graphic vector, a visual tool used today in basically every social network, digital typography or interface.

Bio

Raúl Silva (Lima, 1991), art researcher and visual artist. In recent years, focused on working from historical memory, he has addressed the constitution of the paradigm of progress in the social imaginary and its contrast with the remnants of Peru's pre- and post-colonial past and its ideological implications. His work encompasses essays, video, performance art, graphic design and painting. He holds a BA in Visual Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and an MA in Critical Theory in Art Praxis from the Dutch Art Institute at the ArtEZ University in the Netherlands. He is currently studying for a master’s degree in Contemporary Art History and Visual Culture at the Complutense University of Madrid. He has recently put on an exhibition entitled The Coordinates Are Concealed  at Imaginary Z (HangZhou, 2022), and Los dioses no están en la naturaleza (The Gods Are Not in Nature) at ICPNA Gallery (Lima, 2019). He has also received awards and production support.