These paper hats come as a further exploration into my interest in distance and desire.

 

In this case I am exploring the contemplation and desire of reaching the mountain but not being able to have it, not really wanting to have it.  

 

Thinking of a popular saying in Spain attributed to Mohammed: 'If Mohammed does not go to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed.' I wondered how I could get the mountain to come to me; these hats represent my attempt. 

 

I decided to build paper hats out of paper with images of mountains on it. The hats have different shapes such as cones or crowns wich remid me of the shapes of mountains. The optic which is the image, and the haptic which is the shape differ with each other.

 

I realized soon after, that when I put the hats on, I could no longer see the image of the mountain, just as when I reach the peak of the mountain, I can no longer see it.

 

In a phallic order, seeing is a privileged sense and also a mode of control. However, putting the hats on your head and with no mirror, makes you vulnerable, you become aware that you cannot see yourself but you can be seen. Wearing the hats unsettles the safe boundaries between body and image, the self and the other.

 

The title of my installation of the paper hats on a table, When 'you' put the hat on, 'you' can not see the mountain, automatically includes the 'beholder' even if they decide not to participate (by trying the hats on).

 

With this title, the 'beholder' becomes an accomplice of the phallic construction of the installation. I see the hats as phallic because they connote symbols of power, and in my narrative, of conquering the mountain.

 

However, at the same time the 'beholder' is also participating on a more matrixial construction where you feel the mountain as an extension of your body, relating to it through proximity, and by being aware of ones own body as present there.

 

In this body of work I have looked for a space that allows vulnerability and disclosure.

 

This disclosure is fragmented, leaving room for the unknown, the unseen, and the imagination. My aim is to create a space where attributes such as intimacy, trust, beauty and care coexist with traditionally more masculine qualities such us strength, singularity and autonomy without excluding each other but questioning and maintaining an ongoing dialogue.