Martín Escalante

In translation, Vacíos means both empty (adj.) and void (n.), features that characterize many outdoor spaces here in the Netherlands. Urban emptiness becomes a vacant territory through which to bridge a Peruvian background via the Spanish language, within a Dutch context.

Based on a mid-1960s architectural experiment from in Peru, this essay film questions the scale and conditions of different Dutch spaces —by testing whether a measurement of 20 meters can serve as a threshold for recognition, a distance that holds potential for togetherness, and for common identity. Dutch experimental housing projects ground this observational and poetic inquiry into distance and proximity.

It addresses the in-between, spatially through areas that are somehow simultaneously indoors and outdoors; symbolically, for people who find themselves in a transitional state of shifting identities. Architecture becomes a metaphor for cultural identity. Through fading frames of concrete and bodies, Vacíos foregrounds the search for both identity and commonality, while in a state of being and longing. Like its title, the gap becomes an invitation: a video installation that shapes space and creates place.