Belen Santamarina

Conserve Nº1: 2018 - 2048

Conserve is a site-specific work conducted by The Triangular Collective in September 2018 for the Bienal de Arte Joven de Santa Fe. The work included a performative action of gathering objects from the university community, simultaneously excavating a hole in the ground for a subsequent ritual burial of these objects. The purpose was to create a collective radiography of our contemporaneity using the archaeological method in reverse. Instead of finding, we hide with the intention of a future encounter.

The conceptual guidelines of this project are the relative idea of time, the rational and symbolic methods of rites, our relationship with the elements of everyday's life and the idea of community.

We created a time capsule to preserve the objects that influence our life and become material remains of a society in constant change.

The objects donated by the community were individually packaged in transparent plastic seeking to make the buried element explicit without taking away its identity and preserving it to avoid its degradation. The capsule will be reopened in the year 2048.

We intend this capsule to work as a bridge, a conversation with the next generations about our daily life. We believe that time capsules have a very positive and contemplative vision of seeing the future and transmitting knowledge, in the same way that we learned the history of past civilizations and cultures through anthropological remains.

The burial of these objects functions as a process that keeps the intangible heritage safe, combining tradition and innovative aspects. The work operates in a horizontal sense without hierarchies, where all the objects offered by the community were accepted no matter what they were.

Triangular Collective is integrated by Regina Calcaterra, Leonardo Vallejo and Belén Santamarina.

Triangular Collective was born from sharing the residence El Pasaje in Tafí del Valle (Tucumán). By discovering the work of the other and working in a shared space, we felt the need to continue with our practices together, seeking to delve into those issues that link us and challenge us as artists.\ Nature, the symbolic and the conceptual are interwoven and related in our projects through reflective discourses. In each of our styles, there is a need to create knowledge that enables the imperceptibly sacred in the phenomena of nature and everyday life.\ Our first experience as a collective was to participate in the 13th Santa Fe's Biennial of Young Art with Conserve Nº1. This site-specific work consisted of a performative action to call for collecting objects in the local community, simultaneous with the excavation of a hole in the ground, for a subsequent burial performance of the time capsule.\ We believe in art as a language and tool to generate knowledge, to rediscover reality and elevate the seemingly invisible and worthless of it.\ We believe in the potential wisdom of each individual, enhanced by our relationship. with our physical and spiritual environment.