Oscar Figueroa

Deméritos
videoperformance, 11:04, 2012

Proceso de Secado / Drying process
videoperformance 4:10, 2008

Oscar Figueroa (b.1986, Costa Rica) studied Art and Visual Communication and Sociology at the National University of Costa Rica and now lives and works in Costa Rica.

Some noted individual exhibits are The Poverty of Progress, Des Pacio Gallery San José,  Costa Rica. 2014; Durmientes, Sala Poligráfica, TEOR/éTica, San José, Costa Rica. In 2013 he exhibited Sistema Musaceae, PILA DE LA MELAZA 950m³, Museum  of Contemporary Art and Design  (MADC), San José, Costa Rica, 2011.

He exhibited within several collective  exhibitions like A chronicle of interventions, Tate Modern, London, England, 2014; Treasure of Lima: A Buried Exhibition, TBA21 Academy, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Austria. 2014; New Fantasies, TEOR/éTica, San José, Costa Rica 2013 ; Prospectif Cinéma, Centre Pompidou, París, France 2013;  City. Body. Action. The Politics of Passions in the Americas, 8th Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, São Paulo, Brazil 2013.

Deméritos

Documentation of action undertaken on 12 October, 2012, Culture Day, formerly Columbus Day. This consisted of making a line of 3,275 m on the railway tracks in Turrialba, Costa Rica, with the material of the bags used to protect banana bunches in the field. During the first decades of the twentieth century, under the initiative of the United Fruit Company, blacks were prevented from travelling to the west of the country, beyond Turrialba. This action was supported by a government policy of “whiteness”, under the pretext of preventing the entry of diseases endemic to the Central Valley.

Proceso de Secado / Drying process

This video documents an action performed at a coffee plantation located in Heredia, Costa Rica, in one of the yards intended for coffee drying—a process that allows the grain to lose excessive moisture. In this case, the "golden grain" has been substituted by the keys of computer keyboards. The action took approximately two hours and ten minutes and around one hundred thousand keys were used.

www.oscarfigueroachaves.blogspot.nl