Sebastián Díaz Morales

Miles marchan (Thousands March)

3 December 2022 - 5 February 2023

Calm, stamping, waiting and then moving forward again with determined tread: in the video installation Miles marchan (Thousands March) by Argentinian artist Sebastián Díaz Morales (1975), thousands of legs flow past you in an impressive current of varying rhythms. Young legs, old legs, bare legs, legs shrouded in hosiery or denim, atop sandals or sneakers. Legs that Díaz Morales filmed at pavement level. Faceless legs, yet all of them in motion and all in pursuit of a singular goal – though you never learn what it is.

Today, the idea of a protest march as a means of decrying injustice and calling for change seems more relevant than ever. But for Díaz Morales, who grew up seeing images of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo protesting in Buenos Aires, this kind of march has a historical significance as well. With Miles marchan (Thousands March), the artist now creates a portrait of the protest march as an entity. It is a portrait of a multitude, of countless individuals who temporarily come together as one being, animated by a singular collective energy. Morales compiled this work from footage of various demonstrations in which the focus lies not on the individual, or on their faces and slogans, but on the movement of the whole. The resulting imagery is equal parts poetry and activism, walking a fine line between fiction and reality.

The soundtrack – for which the artist collaborated with the South African composer and sound artist Philip Miller – reinforces this impression. The audio track is by turns abstract and realistic, tranquil and rousing, moving along with the rhythm of the throng that seems to stride on forever. Meanwhile, Morales himself avoids asserting an opinion. He is interested primarily in the idea and the necessity of change. By deconstructing and reassembling the masses, as it were, he shapes a new image of reality.