Our Silences: San Diego, California, USA.

https://vimeo.com/119105281

After remaining two years out of public, Our Silences was presented for the first time in the American Union in January 2015, with the support of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The city of San Diego was chosen as the first exhibition venue. The title of the exhibition and the proximity of this city to the border that separates both nations represented a good opportunity to reflect on issues such as migration and the treatment given to people who try to cross the enormous barrier that they face every day. America part and the conception of it. It was the first installation of monumental public art presented by a Mexican sculptor in the city, a situation that accompanied our project everywhere, except in Mexico.

Until November 2011 Our silences had been presented in eleven cities, had been witnessed in the public space by hundreds of thousands of people physically and many more in another type of public space: the media and the internet. The sculptures were installed in the Ruocco Park, located in one of the main avenues of the tourist corridor of the Port, Seaport Village.

In a city with a strong military presence, the works were located in an area where there is also the famous monumental sculpture The Unconditional Surrender, and where there is a permanent exhibition of historic ships of the American Navy; among them the museum-carrier aircraft USS Midway. This huge vessel was the largest in the world until 1955 and, before being withdrawn after 47 years of service, participated in the mobilization of Vietnam and served as flagship in the Persian Gulf, during Operation Desert Storm. Anchored in the Pacific Ocean, the spectacular warship, and the tasks that in the past executed, were observed from the coast by half of the silent Guardians. The other five looked towards the south of the continent, where the busiest border of the planet is located: migrants with and without documents, agricultural workers and manufacturers that help to sustain the fabulous American economy from their base, smugglers of licit and illicit goods and a great number of people attracted by the hypnotic song of the American dream, who are struggling to enter a country that assimilates the same that confronts them with an insurmountable wall and where they can not always say what they think.