Artist's Website

Grant Summary
Support for travel to La Paz, Bolivia and Caracas, Venezuela to conduct interviews for The Good Life, a multi-channel video installation, a newsprint publication, and an internet archive exploring US interventions in Latin America.
Keywords
Artist Statement
The Good Life is a multi-part video project composed of over 360 video interviews with pedestrians on the streets of twelve cities in Latin America shot between 2005 and 2008. The work examines processes of democratization as they relate to U.S. interventionist policies in the region. The conversations and dialogues recorded in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Guatemala, La Paz, Managua, México City, Panamá, Santiago, San Salvador, São Paulo, and Tegucigalpa, cover topics such as individuals’ perceptions of U.S. foreign policy, democracy, leadership, and governance. The result is a wide spectrum of responses and opinions, which vary according to local situations and specific forms of government in each country. The Good Life is formed of an Internet Archive, a video installation, and a series of commissioned texts and articles.

  • La buena vida / The Good Life , Carlos Motta Courtesy of the artist.

  • La buena vida / The Good Life 2008, Carlos Motta, installation at ICA, Philadelphia. Courtesy of the artist.

  • La buena vida / The Good Life , Carlos Motta, screenshot from website. Courtesy of the artist.