María Elena PomboPombo

Venezuela, 1988

María Elena PomboPombo

I work through open-ended and interconnected projects that investigate real and imaginary pasts, presents, and futures through installations, sculptures, videos, and moments that often play with site-specificity, ephemerality, and participation.

My practice is centered around Earth matter holding historical and contemporary importance across different cultures and times, which I often gather through participatory actions. From avocado-seeds gathered by restaurant workers, water-samples provided by individuals around the world, onion-skins collected with farm workers, plant-starches, algae, and more. A framework to engage heterogeneous publics into co-creating contemporary rituals based on cooperation.

Applying ancient technologies and scientific inquiry that draw inspiration from geological processes, I transform these materials into textile dye, leather, plastic, clay, glass, yarn, and even electricity and fuel for vehicles. These material re-imaginations are conceptual propositions that I use to make evident the many possibilities (and realities) that are ignored in hegemonic narratives and the need to create alternative languages and ways to understand the past and imagine possible futures.