Exhibition

Santiago Tamayo Soler

Retornar, 2021

Video, 20:00 minutes

Structured as a video game, Retornar (Spanish: “to return”) follows the last nine humans on Earth and their journey towards a global reset. The work is set in the Andes in the year 2222 after a catastrophic war driven by extreme resource exploitation has ravaged the landscape. The surviving characters must engage in a series of tedious puzzles, interspersed with lengthy loading screens, until they are summoned to fulfill their destiny as seeds for a new generation. Tamayo Soler builds a multilayered world that includes a digital celestial, drawing from early 8- bit video games, life simulation games, and video chat universes.

Santiago Tamayo Soler is a Colombia-born, Montreal based multidisciplinary artist. Working in video with a background in performance art and film, Santiago is interested in world-building and juxtaposing digitally constructed locations with archival footage. His practice proposes an eco-political examination of Latin America from a diasporic perspective, giving home to immigrant and queer stories.