Time Divisa is an artistic project developed over five years in collaboration with inmates from the Santa Martha Acatitla prison, located in the Iztapalapa delegation of Mexico City. The work was conceived as a two-way exchange to raise questions about the value, the work, and the perception of time. The starting point of the project, in the artist's own words, is that “everyone's time is worth the same.”
Vega Macotela worked with different inmates under the following premise: he would dedicate a previously established amount of time to perform an action that the prisoner requested, while the prisoner would in turn have to do a specific task requested by the artist. The currency was, as the title of the piece indicates, time. The artist thus became the actor of the wishes of the imprisoned person, and the inmate, in turn, developed some process or object at his request. Both actions had to be done simultaneously, so that in a certain way the inmate was the one who executed (at least symbolically, by a kind of transfer or exchange of labor energy) the actions that the artist performed outside of the walls. For this reason, the duration of both actions should be equivalent.
The time invested in performing tasks such as looking for family and friends, celebrating birthdays and important dates with them, or obtaining and smuggling products, was exchanged for actions such as writing chronicles about their personal stories or events within the prison, as well as making drawings based on the tattoos of other inmates or tours of the spaces within the place. The resulting exhibition piece is made up of the documentation and different records of the 365 exchanges that occurred over the five years that the project lasted.
Time Divisa is a proposal for understanding the way in which time is quantifiable from a system of reciprocal transactions. In addition, it puts into play a system in which the artist and the prisoner perform actions that have the same value. In this way, the piece proposes an equal evaluation of the time and work of all people.
EKA, December 2019
https://www.tierraadentro.cultura.gob.mx/time-divisa-intercambiar-lo-incuantificable/
https://revistas.um.es/reapi/article/view/117381/111031
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dpx87v/mexican-rashes-137-v15n6
https://www.dailyserving.com/2014/12/jose-antonio-vega-macotela-at-prospect-3/
https://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/cultura/62979.html
Time Divisa is an artistic project developed over five years in collaboration with inmates from the Santa Martha Acatitla prison, located in the Iztapalapa delegation of Mexico City. The work was conceived as a two-way exchange to raise questions about the value, the work, and the perception of time. The starting point of the project, in the artist's own words, is that “everyone's time is worth the same.”
