Diego Santomé - Castillos de arena (Sandcastles) - MOT International - London

Diego Santomé is a multidisciplinary artist who incorporates encountered life experience as his primary artistic language. His work is achieved through minimal stories, simple objects and small actions, an aesthetic often associated with minimal and conceptual art. Utilising the language of cinema, Diego Santomé shows us Castillos de arena (Sandcastles), a film, that speaks directly about the ephemeral nature of things and, ultimately, life. The film portrays two Czech Republic immigrants who reside in a tent on a beach in Playa America, Spain. It depicts their daily making of meticulously sculpted sandcastles in exchange for money, as a way to earn a small living. We witness the process of building, from the preparation of the utensils used, to the act of making, through to the destruction of the sandcastles as the tide washes in or rain begins to fall. Through this non-fictional narrative and simple observation we are confronted with the couple’s reality and the immaterial nature of the passing of time.

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