Mariana Castillo Deball explores the role objects play in our understanding of identity and history. She uses installation, sculpture, photography and drawing.

Engaging in prolonged periods of research and field work, she takes on the role of the explorer or the archeologist, compiling found materials in a way that reveals new connections and meanings.

I discovered her work when i did my research for the Tlazolteotl project. I was looking for other versions of the Tlazolteotl sculpture. In my research i stumbled upon the work of Eduardo Paolozzi. He created An exhibition for the Museum of Mankind; Lost Magic Kingdoms and Six Paper Moons.

Paolozzi presented “leftover” artifacts from the British Museum’s ethnographic collection, among them papier-mâché molds made by nineteenth-century archaeologist Alfred Maudslay

This exhibition included a Tlazolteotl sculpture in papier-mâché.

Deball reacted on this exhibition. Struck by these “ghost objects,” the artist has made what might be thought of as artificial fossils that embody both Maudslay’s casts and their influence on Paolozzi’s sculpture.

Deball’s works are very much connected to my new project, and she became a source of inspiration for me.