Interview with Sebastian Preece – Padiglione America Latina – IILA (Istituto Italo-Latino Americano), 54th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia
Sebastian Preece excavated in the ruins of an old adobe house in Los Angeles, in southern Chile, recovering a set of books. At the moment he found them, the books were soggy, muddy, and infested by worms that were eating their pages, evidencing a process of decomposition. He removed the volumes from there, cataloged and recuperated them, allowing the tomes to dry and to enter a state of semi-fossilization. As in arcaeological ruins, in the book-stones one can catch sight of the texts on an eroded support. The main content of the book concerns parliamentary acts in regard to territorial demarcations of Chile in the 1950s through ’70s. Preece’s original architectural intervention, which sought to find the elements to generate a portrait of the family, is extended in this reflection on the historically disputed territotial borders, the lines of a national portrait.