Rémy Amezcua > Evidence Collages > About Evidence Collages

I started this body of work in December 1997. It came from a need to manifest my experience and existence while on working trips. In the hotel room, during some spare time, bored with TV, having nothing to read and no daylight to shoot with, I decided to use the materials I had at my disposal to express my state of mind and represent the location I was in.

With the help of tape and glue, I created a collage out of many little fragments of personal waste that I had inadvertently collected on these trips. Mundane fragments that nonetheless constituted biographical evidence of my experience as well as witnesses of my existence during a particular place and period. The final collage resides inside a Ziploc bag, creating not just a format, but also suggesting the idea of evidence that has been preserved and catalogued, remaining "tamper free" by the use of a zip tie.

The transient nature of these objects is what appeals to me the most, how they go from having immediate importance to becoming instant waste is what is inspiring (e.g. Boarding Pass). If I am the main character in the "movie of my life", these elements are like extras in my movie: that is, the characters that go unnoticed, but without their contribution the movie would nonetheless not be possible.

The personal waste becomes a testament and a memory of the place it came from, in the process representing biographical elements through the remains of consumption. In the end, we are what we consume, what we leave behind, this is what defines us, what identifies us.

The objects become evidence, representative of the skeptical fear that prevails in the contemporary individual's ethos as well as exposing our relationship with articles of consumption that become witnesses and define our identity and presence on earth.
The interest for the objects seems as irrelevant as their placement in the composition: a fake accident born of a rational organization as well as an emotional intuition. Symbols that represent dreams, aspirations, conquests and identifiers, all these remains of trips see their original value reactivated and transformed by the act of shooting them and the process of photographic enlargement.

The personal wreckage is reinvented into a fantastic "star" that is public and full of imagery, visible to everyone.