Autoconstrucciones, Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Ontario, Canada 2012

The exhibition offers three distinct experiences: through a suggested pathway, participants move through modules where they alternately observe, navigate, and find shelter. Beyond the physical displacement dictated by the space, the artist suggests an essential metaphorical dimension—the construction of the self rooted in the reflection of the person in transit. Drawing from his dual background in visual arts and architecture, José Luis Torres uses nomadism as a creative force, where the migrant constructs their own interpretation of the spaces they discover while simultaneously building their own identity. Between the fragility of repurposed materials and the creation of ephemeral habitable structures, the artwork becomes a mirror for an identity in constant mutation, proving that appropriating a space is, above all, an act of survival and poetic anchoring.