Valentina Aproda Maurer

Artist Statement

Coming from a family that has slowly been culturally gentrified over generations, I have lost touch with my ancestral traditions. The culture that I reside with today is environmental based rather than ethnic, religious, or racially based. This project explores the idea of constructing a personal connection to something lost by rebuilding it in a way that is connected to the past and present. 

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The symbol of the house is a reference to the earliest influential environment many of us experience. We grow up shaped by the entertainment industry, believing in an ideal “home.” The “American Dream” is the ultimate pursuit but we soon find that it is almost an unachievable goal. I am interested in destroying that fake notion and reconstructing the idea of my ideal “home.” 

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Inspired by the use of pinatas in my Spanish origins for religious celebration, I have rebuilt the icon with black and white photographs. The modernized pinata I have made is based on my childhood home that has been lost to me. By suspending this house, like a pinata, this represents our expectations of the ideal home that is so often unreachable. The idea of destroying it could be a way of freeing ourselves from being tied to the ideals of our environmental upbringings.