In an effort to help more rural communities in Guanajuato, Mexico modernize, federal and state government programs, like REPROCOM, help provide towns with new agricultural equipment in the form of silos, mills, and shellers. Additionally, the majority of funding through the 3x1 Program, which matches an emigrant’s remittances on the municipal and state level, goes towards road and house construction and is typically translated into materials like brick, concrete, and cinder blocks.
As a city made up of expansive flat land or wall architecture, these newly introduced silos have become imposing structures in the landscape. While they help increase efficiency in agricultural production, these uninhabitable sites are unable to contribute places or gathering or learning. The limitations and moodiness of agricultural production, with very few other industry alternatives available, has driven heads of households to leave their families and make the treacherous journey across the Mexican and US southern border in pursuit of work that will better provide for and sustain their families back at home.
In trying to help bring these disparate streams of funding together and find a way to diversify production within Guanajuato, the project works within the existing programs but expands them in a way that introduces new learning and employment opportunities. The project redirects the existing funding streams toward the construction of a brick factory, which would allow for the engagement of the city while continuing to provide a self-sustaining stream of construction materials. Sited on a corner joining the existing tequila factory and nearby recreational fields, the new factory allows for both the uninterrupted flow of materials through the facility and opportunities for visitors to observe the brick-making process, from a humble pile of raw earth to stacks of finished bricks. The project hopes to present this new industry as a potential for the growth of the city itself, rather than the impenetrable objects for the benefit of foreign economies.
Published in Retrospecta 41 and Two Sides of the Border: Reimagining the Region
Exhibited in Two Sides of the Border
Published in Two Sides of the Border