works
El Rey Blanco
hearth
zines
A cinq cents métres de l’effondrement (2022)
Arriver au port et attendre que la ville s’éveille (2021)
Tout ce qui pend d’un fil (2016)
Pianos en Arabia (2014)
about
contact
works
El Rey Blanco
hearth
zines
A cinq cents métres de l’effondrement (2022)
Arriver au port et attendre que la ville s’éveille (2021)
Tout ce qui pend d’un fil (2016)
Pianos en Arabia (2014)
about
contact
The project takes its name from a 16th-century Spanish colonial legend in South America: “The White King and the Silver Mountain”; a narrative of greed and opulence, in the manner of El Dorado, which promised that, by traveling up the course of a great river, one would reach the domain of a monarch who reigned from a mountain made entirely of silver.
This story would mark the beginning of a race to exhaust the continent's resources for the benefit of foreign interests. Yesterday, the river was none other than the Río de la Plata, today Argentina, and the legendary mountain, Cerro Rico de Potosí, today Bolivia: a triangular mound that rises to an altitude of more than 4,500 meters and is known for being one of the most important silver deposits in history, emptied during the Spanish occupation of the region.
Today, 500 years later, that same race for resource exploitation is perpetuated in another triangular form: the Lithium Triangle, bounded by Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, an area that concentrates more than 65% of the world's reserves of lithium, a metal crucial for the manufacture of rechargeable batteries, commonly known as “new oil” and also “white gold.”
With a documentary approach imbued with a strong dreamlike component, through photography, sculpture, and archival material, I propose a parallel between these two triangular shapes and question the continuity of extractive machinery and its human, economic, and environmental consequences, exploring how this narrative continues to shape memory and territory.
“Se llevaron la plata y el oro, nos dejaron espejitos de colores”
“They took the silver and gold, they left us colored mirrors”
(popular saying in South America)
(popular saying in South America)
“Silver Vein” - sculpture: Rock, silvery metal, 2024
“Open Veins” duo show at PhMuseum Lab (05 Dec 2024 - 23 Jan 2025) along with Sarah Schneider and Stella Meyer, curated by Camilla Marrese and Giuseppe Oliverio. Credits : Rosa Lacavalla - PhMuseum
“The Lithium Triangle worth a Potosi”
5 pure silver coins - 6.67 g each.
Paris, France, 2024 - 1/1
Inspired by one of the coins minted with silver from the Cerro de Potosi in the same city by the Spanish during the occupation of South America, I have recreated 5 coins totally made in silver that keeps in the face the original minted model, with the year of the presumed discovery of the hill by the aboriginal Diego Huallpa in 1545. In the mint, as if echoing that they are the two faces of the same coin, I reproduce the silhouette of the 5 most important Lithium deposits in Latin America, adding their name and the phrase “Vale un Potosi” which in Hispanic voice refers to something that contains an extraordinary wealth. In low relief, each coin is crossed by lines, which when put together, form a triangle, making reference to the fact that, The Lithium Triangle is worth a Potosi.
“Illusion” - 20 x 25 cm
Lithium-Silver Wet Plate reproduction. 2025
This reproduction is made with the wet collodion technique, in which silver salts and lithium salts (the two main metals of the project) were used to reproduce the image.
Showcased on:
Festival Circulation(S) 2026
Imperfetto #01
FISHEYE
PhMuseum
Little Stories x Diversion Studio
PhMuseum Lab
Der_Greif x Rencontres d’Arles - Screening “Face to Face” - Rencontres d’Arles, 2024