Installation view. La Casa Encendida, Madrid.
Puzzle is a collective action developed in the city of Rennes in May 2002. It consisted in the street distribution of the 720 pieces of a puzzle whose total dimensions were 540 x 240 centimetres. The puzzle had to be reconstructed in the Galerie Art & Essai of Université Rennes 2 while the exhibition it was taking place Dé[s]règlements. Once finished it would have shown a definition of terrorism we wrote as an answer to the definitions that were (and still are) being aproved, legislated and diffused.
Taking a piece of the puzzle implied acquiring two commitments with the
action and the ending of the work:
1. First it implied to think about the proposed definition of terrorism
and other possible contributions to it. Taking the piece meant the commitment
of thinking it.
2. In second place it implied to participate in a responsable way, as
this participation was the only way to achieve the completation of the
puzzle. If someone that was taking a piece wasn´t bringing it back
to the puzzle, this one would forever be unresolved, with permanent gaps.
224 pieces never return for the resolution of the puzzle. 496 came back.
We reached a definition of terrorism in form of a puzzle through our necessity
of making ourselves the correct questions about reality, trying to start
to answer them and getting this process furtherer than ourselves to a
public sphere. Showing our question and our answer we would have like
to open new chains of questions and answers.
This action and this puzzle (including its gaps) exist to be thought collectively.
Caja Madrid Collection
Puzzle
Permanent marker and enamel on plywood. Digital color prints on paper
of variable dimensions (definitons in english, spanish and french).
540 x 240 cm; 496 pieces 20 x 20 cm.
2002