Hundreds of plaster casts of trans and non-binary people have been unveiled as the latest installation, Mil Veces un Instante (A Thousand Times in an Instant), on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London
The sculpture, created by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles, features the faces of 726 trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people. Margolles has said the work recognises a community that is often marginalised, in both her native Mexico and around the world.
Mil Veces un Instante was made by applying plaster directly onto the faces of the models, so the material became infused with the sitters’ hair and skin cells.
The casts are arranged around the plinth in the form of a tzompantli, a skull rack that featured in Mesoamerican civilisations, used to display the remains of war captives or sacrificial victims.
Margolles’s work “investigates the social and aesthetic dimensions of conflict, creating sculptural installations, photographs, films and performances imbued with material traces of death”.
