ARTIST STATEMENT

I am interested in examining the role played by identity papers in the construction of the image
of the individual in a social context. I.e. the way documents generate a link between a name,
place of birth, family history, economic status and a face. If documents matter is because they
are imposed to the individual; defining for he or she, privileges and obligations. On reformulating
the elements making up these credentials (text, graphics and images), into a photographic
document, my intention is to underline the way they articulate to project a single image of the
person. In this way, text and graphics, end up as an extension of the photographic discourse
of identity.

The work is constructed of fragments of documents -passports, visas, birth certificates, credit
cards, licenses, etc- belonging to people with different cultural backgrounds (sometimes politically
opposed). The composition of each piece is an analogy of the social and cultural structures in which
the identity papers are integrated. In the logic of the document, the singularity of the individual as
opposed to the mass relies back in a set of clues and numbers. The serial number, together with
the stamp and the sign, which prevent forgery, are transformed into a valuable source of identity.

Passport and other identity papers define a “membership” that traces a historical, regional and
cultural path to the individual. At the same time identity documents raise a barrier against the
foreigner, recalling the tribal nature of human organization. However, within this negotiation
between the familiar and the foreign, a transcultural process takes place.

Emilio is a three-month-old baby, born in California of Mexican parents. His dual nationality is a
recognition of the chicano culturue. Shiva is the child of an Iranian father and a German mother,
whose documents reflect her enigmatic dual identity. Peypoch is a Spaniard who is now a
naturalized Mexican. This piece plays with the idea of the ordinary citizen who forms part of a
monarchy, and with the complex historical relationship of Latin peoples with the Spanish crown.

The work is not a celebration of internationalism but rather a recognition of the line running from
geopolitics to the everyday life of the individual. Globalization is consequently an extension of the
economic rather than migratory limits and, paradoxically, reinforces frontiers, for example those
between poor and rich countries. The pleasure I derive as an spectator of my own work arises from
being privy to the story of each one of these persons through what their documents tell me and then
being able to raise this information to a plane where all of us can relate to this experience. In this
sense, my reason for art is a better understanding of life.

Enrique Méndez de Hoyos
Mexico City, March 2004