Ilopango, Stela B, 536-2022

Depicting an ancient carved stone, or a Mayan stela from Mesoamerica, this work has the marks of a labor intensive process carried out by immigrants from El Salvador in the city of Los Angeles in order to return industrial steel back to the earth from where it was extracted, becoming organic stone once more. The title of the sculpture evokes the massive volcanic eruption of the Ilopango volcano, formerly located in what is now El Salvador, which in the year 536 disseminated particles of its soil, known as tierra blanca joven, and darkened the sun for months in the Americas, Europe and Asia. While the work invites us to imagine a possible Mayan culture that might have existed in what is now El Salvador before the volcanic eruption destroyed everything in the region, it also engages with a history predating the first world-wide pandemic, global warming and cooling, and the ancient migrations of people and land from the Americas. The inscriptions on the stela depict the saga of survival and migration of Central American peoples to places like Los Angeles where they live and work today in large numbers.