Guardian No.7

There is something the majority of the world has lost, a shroud of mystery unveiled that birthed the boundaries of fact and fiction. Looking at an imagined ancient time, yearning to exist in it, and reflecting upon its unbridled mystique is where Daniel Manchego-Badiola gains the impulse to make this work. He aims to be a medium between this imaginative realm and our world today, creating works such as this, alluding to the effect of its existence. These artifactual artifices not only speak to us about a time lost but perhaps a loss within ourselves. Guardians (2012-) is an ongoing series of pelts from creatures that perhaps never existed, and the life Daniel has given them, is actually a suspended death. Thus, these poor, ugly, beautiful hides are neither fact nor fiction, they linger between being an appreciative sacrifice and a trophy of virility. This brings into question our own individual relationship to nature, displayed in an encapsulating husk, peradventure of a world that once was.