SERGIO BRETEL
CONTEMPORARY ARCHAEOLOGY
Or how to reconstruct the present
2017 - 2026
Archaeology is the scientific discipline that studies human societies through the analysis and interpretation of the remains and vestiges of material culture and evidence of human action.
Contemporary archaeology is the medium that allows us to bring to light what is absent in order to better understand our own time, it is a form of self-portrait of society, it helps us to see ourselves, to analyses our society through its objects.
Found objects Lost memories
“I don't look for what people throw away; I look for what people lose.”
This project is a search for stories from found objects, that valuable thing that has been
lost, a lost treasure. Every time we find an object we find a remnant of human activity, each object proposes a record of reality, a way of inhabiting from its materiality and from its use. It proposes memory, it creates history. Each object creates an agencement of memory and requires its own reflection, it acts as a soundbox, it detonates its own history, it refers to an absent owner, it inhabits another time, relates to a personal experience.
Objects are fragments of lost memory, suspended in time, interwoven between territory, loss and memory. The landscape speaks to us through objects that act as records of human activity, embedded within a specific context in a material culture.
Contemporary urban archaeology - process
“We’ve all lost some personal object of our affection.”
Found objects (‘objet trouvé’) possess memory, history and belonging; they are triggers of art in themselves.
The artist acts as an archaeologist—exploring, gathering, and collecting wherever they go. They seek to keep the story of each object alive, to preserve the object alive and to create new narratives. Objects are the legacy and echo of an era, the evidence that evokes the history of a material existence, of a use and a specificity.
Search as a process, as experience, as action, as obsession, as hope, as a form of connection with place, between places and history, everything is interconnected. I am interested in the act of Losing, Seeking and Finding. I'm interested in the interconnection between the human being and the object, how the use activates and creates story, how the memory is created.
Our connection with the place, the city, and the landscape unfolds through its objects, which serve as the signs of its narrative. Each object invites interpretation, enabling the construction of stories that establish continuity, facilitate appropriation, and creates memory.