David Correa American, b. 1999

Blending performance, film, poetry, object, and imagery, David Correa’s practice presents surreal narratives exploring and satirizing man’s existential relationship to the tool and the self. Contextualized through collective aspects of Latin American situationism, Correa informs these narratives by referencing political theory, mythology, history, and philosophy, creating networks of ideologies which anchor the Latin laborer as an absurd figure. These networks are utilized as a foundation for story-telling, depicting narratives which blur the lines between operator and tool, task and purpose. The characters that arise therefor act as conduits for rebellion, rejecting or embracing their own sense of being. While actively exploring these relationships across his time-based work, Correa’s presentation of ephemera as sculpture deepens this investigation by humanizing and memorializing the tool. The equipment and garments used in Correa’s performances and films are exhibited as relics. Glass, steel, aluminum, plastics, and found objects become framing tools encasing and immortalizing the soiled garment, the wear of a machine, or the portrait of the laborer. Likewise, Correa’s “non-ephemeral” objects act as contextual reference for the narrative. It is through this self-made archive that Correa furthers his exploration by rendering death and non-functionality as interchangeable.