Of Tortilla Machines

This is a Celorio Tortilla Machine.

In 2009 one of these machines manufactured 6000 clay and corn tortillas for my final show at RISD but I always felt that given more time, I would have come up with a better formal solution for it.

Well, there might just be a chance to do it in a few months. This means halting my projects for two months but I'm really excited. The reason I chose to intervene these machines in the first place was because I'm amazed how these huge machines manage to be exported to different parts of the world and in doing so, they perpetrate cultural identity (or resistance) in some kind of way. Where there's a tortilla machine, you'll find some kind of latinhood around these places.

I also feel respectful towards the inventor of this Mexican machine Fausto Celorio Mendoza, it took around 30 hours per week away from the mexican women who undertook this hand-made process and it didn't permeate right away because Mexican men were worried about their women becoming cuscas or with a lack of morals once they had all that free time to themselves. The fact that this was also a grassroots technology makes it special and dear to most of all Mexicans.

Finally, by mixing it with clay I was making the tortilla a more resilient element, one that brought a piece of mexican soil in it's mixture; a known feeling to those temporary or established migrants that reside in any part of an alien country.