Nov. 17th – Dic. 30th, 2011
Havre 64
The Compass is an installation work that occupied an early 1900s row house in central Mexico City. An audio narrative guides the viewer though the house. Beginning in the basement and ascending to the third floor, the story unfolds from the perspective of a housing contractor. He comes back to the house after a month-long pause in the renovation work to find the place has been used for mysterious purposes that never come fully into view.
The work references Jorge Luis Borges’s short story Death and the Compass, echoes film noir spy thrillers, and uses current news stories of intelligence agency safe houses and rendition procedures as a point of departure. The Compass provides a poetic questioning of one’s moral compass and the manner in which we understand history from the dust of those who have arrived before us.
