La Deconstrucción del Mundo (The Deconstruction of the World) , 2026

By Ximena Alarcón and Biddy Tran

Multimedia installation

Dimensions Variable

Videography by Wendy Ayala, 2026

 The Deconstruction of the World weaves together the work of Ximena Alarcón (Mexico–France) and Biddy Tran (Vietnam–United States) in an installation that reflects on the sociocultural consequences of colonization, imperialism, and war.

By connecting the past to the present, this installation reveals the traces of historical processes that seem to repeat themselves and continue to shape this world, in which the ambition for power transcends all forms of life.

This installation consists of a mound of rubble created by Ximena Alarcón, representing a scene of destruction made up of remnants of infrastructure and objects that allude to human presence or loss. Beside lies a pond of water with water hyacinth, where nature appears as a principle of life and regeneration, but also as a testament to ecological transformations caused by colonization.

The water hyacinth is a plant that, like the thousands of people displaced daily from their territories, was extracted from its original context—the Amazon basin—and introduced to Mexico and Vietnam in the nineteenth century. Since then, it has proliferated uncontrollably, disrupting local fauna and altering the ecosystems of both countries.

From the water hyacinth, growing alongside the ruins, braids woven from the plant’s fibers emerge and thread their way through the mound, reaching the other side to be interwoven by Biddy Tran. Through the act of weaving, Tran constructs an amorphous form that suggests a transformation —a contemplative gesture toward the possibility of resurgence and the imagining of a different future.

​The installation places us in a world where empathy is relative, and a collective amnesia prevails—where the rubble stands as both a remnant of destruction and a symptom of a profound human disconnection. The Deconstruction of the World alludes to silenced genocides, the absurd logics of domination, and their irreparable consequences.

Curatorial text by Sofía Gabriel