El archivo del polvo

On September 11th 2001, Elena del Rivero had been living in New York for ten years, but the attacks happened while she was in Spain. When she went back, her studio apartment in Manhattan, which was very close to where the Twin Towers had stood, was all covered in dust, ash, and thousands of pieces of paper that had blown in through the shattered windows. As she opened the front door, Elena immediately sensed, intuitively, the piece she would work on for the following months: she would sew, on a 20 x 5-metre piece of gauze, those papers that had flown to her, and she would also photograph the rubble, carry out solitary performances, and film, from her window, the work being done at Ground Zero.

This material is now part of El archivo del polvo (‘The Archive of Dust’), a startling textual and visual reflection upon the effects of war, pollution, migrations, urban and architectural transformation and how the private becomes public, and vice versa, in modern-day warfare. It is a living collage that reflects and documents a long and painful process of collective grief, which the materiality of the dust itself both transmits and impedes.

Included here are texts by Pepa Balsach, Warwick Anderson, Nada Shabout, Carmen Calvo Santesmases y Jorge García García, Mateo Feijóo, Mónica Valenciano, Luz Pichel y Ophelia Maré.

This publication has been produced for the exhibition El archivo del polvo by Elena del Rivero, curated by Mateo Feijóo, presented in Naves Matadero - Centro Internacional de Artes Vivas. 

Elena del Rivero (Valencia, 1949) is a multidisciplinary artist, based in the United States since 1991. In her work, which takes the observation of everyday life as its starting point, Elena has researched the study of different written and visual forms in order to communicate a personal experience. This may be autobiographical, to some extent, or linked to historical events she has witnessed, with an emphasis on the epistolary format. Her projects have a close connection with paper and the restoration of pieces that are damaged during the creative process itself (the act of mending). They are constructed slowly, for a prolonged period of time, with no apparent expiry date. Her work has been widely endorsed in the United States, obtaining significant recognition from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Joan Mitchell Award, among others, as well as grants and residency programmes that have allowed her to further develop her projects. Her work can be found in the leading collections of the United States, such as in the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum, among others. In Spain, her work has been acquired by Fundación La Caixa, Patio Herreriano and the Reina Sofia, among others.