Dandara Catete

From my studio in Vallecas, I observe dampness stains creeping up the walls, even though they've been treated countless times. Urban development creates ghosts not only on the surface, but also underground. This territory was once crisscrossed by streams, which is why we now have so much underground capillary moisture within constructions in the neighborhood. They are ghosts of a hidden past that manifest themselves on our walls—erased geographical features whose presence persists within the innards of buildings. 

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I ponder over the relationship between polyurethane foam and moisture. Sprayed foam insulation is designed to block moisture and cold, while sponges, made of the same material, can become saturated and are used to manage water. Insulation and moisture both leave stains on urban walls that signal the deterioration of a territory, revealing presences that should have been erased but persist as traces of the past. I begin to weave more organic foam tapestries, which rise up the loom like moisture up a wall—not in an organized manner, but creating strange yellow shapes, halfway between the lumps of sprayed insulation and the bubbles of peeling wall paint.

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I then imagine the soft upholstery foam oozing out of the mattress, like pus from a wound, an infection that emerges from within and can contaminate the entire body. It evokes the image of  polyurethane bubbles protruding from the cracks in a wall that's been filled, or the bulges caused by moisture on a surface. They are open wounds—in the landscape, in the home, on the epidermis of bodies.