2020

Aural and visual intervention at the Old Guadalajara Bus Station
Luminous sign 2 x 30 m, audio system with 4 trumpet speakers for façade, audio system with 18 indoor speakers, 200 b/w prints variable size, publication
With the support of Espacios Revelados / Changing Places, Siemens Stiftung, Goethe Institut and Cultura Jalisco

Emicel Guillén
editorial and typographic design

Elisa Schmelkes
voice

Leonardo Santiago
voice

Esteban King and Israel Martínez
music

Diego Martínez
audio design and diffusion, field recordings and video editing

Hernando Torres e Israel Martínez
photography and video

Emmanuel Becerra
production

The Old Guadalajara Bus Station: among the dust, the dirt, the ghostly and, at the same time, what remains alive and moving. A glorious past interrupted and witness to one of the greatest tragedies for society in the state of Jalisco: the gas explosions on April 22, 1992.

The project is based on interviews with just over a hundred people who work at the Station, users from its construction to today and neighbours in the area, to form a story that is distributed in 18 sound channels inside the abandoned building and in a publication. The façade has been intervened with 4 audio channels that play a composition inspired by Ambient 1: Music for Airports from Brian Eno, and with the words DISAPPEAR . FADE AWAY (DESAPARECER . DESVANECERSE in Spanish) where the legendary sign of the Station was, pointing out the acute problem of violence, kidnapping and murder in this region.

The work explores the notion of “inhabiting the failure”, surviving the failure of modernity. Stealth and melancholy took hold of the visitors.