Teresa Margolles installation in London’s Trafalgar Square “Mil Veces un Instante”shines a light on violence against transgender and nonbinary people

 

As the US Administration is actively seeking to actually wipe out the Transgender community, on the other side of the Atlantic the Brits are publicly celebrating them, and on one of the city’s famous landmarks .  Right  under the towering column that Admiral Nelson sits atop off are the statutes of the lions that ‘guard’ him in Trafalgar Square.  There are also four giant plinths that mark the corners of the Square and whilst 3 of them hold large statues of men on horses (one is of King George IV) but there is one empty one because for some reason the statute the George’s brother King William IV never materialized.

In the past this has been used for several temporary installations, but its the current one that must be one of the very best uses ever. Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant)” (2024) by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles which is comprised of plaster face casts, “ shines a light on violence against transgender and nonbinary people in both Mexico and the United Kingdom.”

Margolles’s installation consists of an eight-foot-tall (2.4 meters) rectangular prism lined with 726 cast faces of trans and nonbinary people from across Mexico City, Ciudad Juárez, and London. The work bears a striking resemblance to a Mesoamerican tzompantli — a publicly displayed skull rack made up of the craniums of either war captives or those killed for Maya, Aztec, or Toltec human sacrifice rituals. The artist originally trained as a forensic pathologist and worked as a mortician in Mexico City, influencing her multi-disciplinary practice to primarily center death, societal violence, and the consequences of social and economic vulnerability in Central and South America.

The artist specifically memorializes her late friend Karla La Borrada, a trans woman, singer, activist, and retired sex worker whose 2015 murder in Ciudad Juárez reportedly remains a cold case.  “We pay this tribute to [Karla] and to all the other people who were killed for reasons of hate,” the artist said in a statement, explaining that the commission is a monument to resilience. “But, above all, to those who live on, to the new generations who will defend the power to freely choose to live with dignity. Through this structure, there is a return to the human, the primal, the sacred.”

@pinknews A new monument featuring hundreds of plaster casts of transgender and nonbinary people has been unveiled on the Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth in London. Mil Veces Un Instante, or A Thousand Times In An Instant, is a sculpture created by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, which features the “life masks” of 726 trans, non-binary and gender-nonconforming people from around the world. During which they will be exposed to London’s weather. The monument was inspired by the Mesoamerican tradition of tzompantli, a skull rack used to display the remains of war captives or sacrificial victims. Margolles, who is a former forensic pathologist and mortician, applied plaster directly onto the faces of the models, many of whom were seggs workers. The piece has been described as a protest against the violence those in the trans and non-binary face around the world. In a statement, Margolles said that the monument was a tribute to Karla La Borrada, a 67-year-old trans singer and former seggs worker who was m**dered in Ciudad Juárez nine years ago. She said: “We pay this tribute to her and all the other people who were killed for reasons of hate. But, above all, to thosewho live on, to the new generations who will defend the power to freely choose to live with dignity.” The masks will be displayed on the fourth plinth until 2026 when they will be replaced by New York-born artist Tschabalala Self’s Lady In Blue sculpture, inspired by a modern “everywoman”. #trafalgarsquare #london #transgender #nonbinary #sculpture #lgbtq ♬ The Champion – Lux-Inspira