the giants who see us

In her new series of works "Giants with Tongues", artist Emma Dominguez intertwines personal history with the monumental architecture of the Million Program. By letting the high-rise buildings rest against landscapes from her childhood in Chile, she creates a world where the line between fiction and reality is blurred.

In the series Giants with Tongues, which grew into the solo exhibition Floating Roots, Soft Concrete, the viewer is invited into a universe where the buildings have come to life.

The works are structured as collages where the backgrounds are taken directly from Dominguez's family history. Here, contrasting natural types meet: the lush greenery of her father's birthplace of Talcahuano, the barren mountain ranges of Antofagasta and the infinity of the Pacific Ocean, captured through an airplane window on the way home to Sweden.

- The landscapes are pictures from my family's photo album, says Emma Dominguez.

By placing well-known multi-million-dollar housing projects from Skärholmen, Fittja and Hagalund's "Blåkulla" in these environments, a new geography is created. It is a place where the roots of exile and the concrete of the hometown merge. 

Image from the exhibition Floating Roots, Soft Concrete. Prints made by Mileta Mijatović & Anna Ehrlemark from  Longest Night. Photo: Ricard Estay 

The process behind the works is a journey in itself. What began as digital collages has been fused into a new physical form through the technique of screen printing. The result is that the houses – the giants – step forward as the series’ main characters, posing in front of the Chilean landscapes.

In the works, the high-rise buildings are presented as “giants with memories”. They are not just passive backgrounds to people’s lives, but beings that look back at us.

– I imagined that they have seen generations grow up – parents, children and grandchildren – and have borne witness to the quiet transformations of everyday life, says Dominguez.

By giving the houses human qualities and memories, Dominguez wants to challenge the stereotypical and often negative narratives that have characterized the story of the million-dollar program. Instead of seeing problem areas, she sees places for life, love and the passage of time. Giants with Tongues is a call to listen to the place and to dare to see our homes and streets with new eyes – through the lens of imagination and care.