Power Tools is a collaborative sculpture done with Alfredo Ramirez.
I was invited by Alfredo to make one of the 6 collaboratives sculptures for his exhibition ‘Del Acero al Lodo’ where he wanted to work around topics of machines, industry and industrialisation.
Our collaboration had to happen across continents, via correspondence and video calls.
On a visit to Ecuador we both went into the hardware store with the idea of looking for materials for our sculpture, and also spending time together in conversation. We both love the hardware store but we approach it from different points of view. Alfredo has great knowledge about tools and he often knows what things are for, he can imagine and build already while in the hardware store. I’m interesting in looking at the store as an array of things that already exist (rather than tools for making). Many things, similar but different. The multiciplity is fascinating and the possibility of finding semiotic and poetics ques on how the world had already been shaped by these objects. The shelves are like long lines to be read.
During our time there, we found two tool boxes: one pink and one black. Identical in shape, they were both advertised differently: one was for beauty accesories and the other one for power tools. We took both and continued our correspondence by shaping these boxes.
Power Tools, takes motors and mechanisms of industrialisation home, and plays with the gendered ideas of distribution of tools and labor in private life.
Del Acero al Lodo was one of the awarded projects of Mariano Aguilera Awards
This work has been shown in:
1. Del Acero al Lodo
Initiated by Alfredo Ramirez
Premios Mariano Aguilera 2025
26.4.2025 — 7.9.2025
CAC
Quito, EC