Jorge Mañes Rubio
Candy
Installation
Photo by Elena Koycheva on Unsplash
Right after WWII, when the eastern half of Berlin was blocked by the Soviet Union. Colonel Gail S. “Hal” Halvorsen, AKA Candy Bomber, started his own Operation Little Vittles, consisting of attaching candies to parachutes and dropping them to the children below.
The artist deliberately chose to represent several national identities only by their local candy wrappers, a disposable piece of paper or plastic whose value is pretty much close to nothing. By carefully framing the wrappers and displaying them on the wall, they are elevated to the state of an artwork. But after a closer look, what seemed to be a harmless array of collectibles is indeed a global map of countries that are currently directly or indirectly involved in military conflicts. In a world with a growing number of conflicts, wars, and terrorist acts, Candy is a reminder “to be sweeter to each other”.
The installation is completed with a 1/72 scale model of a Douglas C54 Skymaster: the aircraft that Halvorsen used to drop candies in Berlin.
Candy is a project in progress.
Jorge Mañes Rubio is the founder and director of Seethisway. Graduated from the Royal College of Art London in 2010, his work explores unseen or forgotten places, creating artworks that reimagine and revive these sites as attention-worthy destinations. His practice revolves around socio-political interventions, creating small objects, immersive narratives and installations. His recent work includes traveling along the Yangtze River looking for the remains of the cities flooded by the Three Gorges Dam Project to recreating the story of a little-known Pacific island paradise, destroyed by mining. When he’s not illegally producing unique souvenirs at the top of the Eiffel Tower, he’s creating a fictional micro nation for a troubled multicultural neighborhood in Amsterdam. He is a TED Fellow and recipient of the S&R Foundation Washington Award. Jorge’s work is regularly exhibited in galleries, museums and art centers worldwide, and he’s currently collaborating on a new art project with the European Space Agency.