This is a phantasmagorical train journey across the scrubland stalked by Cain’s
wandering shadow.
Metaphor for a failed idea of progress, emblem and also facilitator of the
Industrial Revolution, the train was an agent of colonialism, globalization
and environmental destruction, and has helped shape the identity and fate
of the world we live in.
In this endless journey we pass through abandoned stations, like Stations
of the Cross without hope of salvation. The clattering, swaying train recalls the to
and fro of the costaleros bearing on their shoulders a huge but invisible weight.
In the contemporary epic, though, the legends are different. Solitary men battle
against nature and other men in a world where everything is permitted. Land,
death, violence and greed from now until the end of the world. The tracks stretch
ahead and the gunmen advance with them, each clearing the way for the other.
Together they lay the foundation stone of the most savage neo-liberalism. A road
of dust, sweat and iron.
Video, 41’