TE19 Iberian Adventure

Gonçalo M. Tavares

Study of two monumental traffic jams in Mexico City.

Before the epidemic.

Speranza says: the car has been transformed “into an almost sedentary vehicle”.

The city’s great nightmare says: “static movement”.

Gabriel Orozco, Mexican artist: “the only way of making a traffic jam bearable is to suppose that the car is not a mode of transport but a residence.”

Residence for people, residence for mice.

InMexicoitoncetookmefourhours inacartogetthreekilometres.

A residence that moves gradually, with four windows.

But the windows look out onto other residences with exhaust pipes and smoke.

I imagine motionless houses – but which need an engine to stay motionless.

A strange petrol that keeps still what is still.

And from the tail of the house there is smoke coming out of the exhausts.

Petrol that calms.

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