Over the past few years, I have been photographing different spaces that are in the process of being demolished or redeveloped. I use the sites as a temporary studio and photograph my interventions in each space.

For De-Constructions, I gathered discarded material from the Hotel Bamer and used it to create a series of ephemeral sculptures off-site. The Hotel Bamer was a landmark in Mexico City in the 1950’s and a site I had previously photographed in 2006. It was left abandoned for several years and is now being redeveloped. Throughout this period of time, I have revisited the site several times to photograph various aspects of its decay and transformation.

The images in De-Constructions explore photography’s role and relationship to sculpture and to the history of the readymade. They are a modern reassessment of Duchamp’s legacy and of the long and evolving dialogue between sculpture and photography. Throughout my work and practice, I’m very interesting in redefining photography’s role and relationship to other artistic media. I started my career as a painter, and I think that has influenced my process greatly. I like the idea of ‘constructing’ an image, and not simply documenting what is already there.

I’m very interested in the cycles of decay and rebirth that characterize Mexico City, and my process is a sort of urban archeology of these abandoned sites. Re- Constructions is a continuation of ideas I have been working on in the past, such as the temporality of objects and spaces, the notion of entropy and the cycles of construction and destruction that characterize modern cities.

Alejandra Laviada