Tirzo Martha creates works in various formats, including installations, sculptures, videos, and performances. With a socially engaged approach, his work addresses the values of contemporary life, connecting the public to political and cultural issues through reflections on his homeland, Curaçao, and the Caribbean diaspora. His repertoire incorporates everyday objects and construction materials such as concrete blocks, bricks, wood, and tires, creating enigmatic compositions that blend dream, fantasy, and reality.
Commissioned for the 14th Mercosul Biennial, Martha presents a large-scale installation addressing socio-environmental issues. The piece is composed, among other materials, of repurposed tires and simulacra of human bodies, forming a sculptural constellation that provokes critical reflections on human protagonism in the Anthropocene—the current geological era, marked by the responsibility of human actions in the transformations of the Earth.
Cristina Barros
Tirzo Martha (Curaçao, 1965) works primarily with installation, sculpture, video, and performance, addressing the accumulation of diverse objects while seeking social and political engagement, often through direct or indirect audience participation in the creative process. Most objects used come from the construction world or our everyday lives, such as cement blocks, corrugated iron, wood, mortar tubes, and reinforcement baskets, car tires, cans, buckets, cages, lamps, belts, chairs, and toilets. His work has been exhibited at the SESC_Videobrasil Biennial, Curitiba Biennial, the Bienal Sur, the Havana Biennial, and the Moscow Biennial. He has participated in exhibitions at the Amsterdam Museum and the Queens Museum of Art, among others. He has won awards and grants from the Mondriaan Funds, Museum Het Domein, and the government of Curaçao. He lives in Willemstad, Curaçao.
