Made from industrial rebar and repurposed terracotta shingles, the sculptures on view reference the work of re-roofing a home. While walking in her Mid-Wilshire neighborhood in Los Angeles, Castillo observed laborers as they removed roof tiles and tossed them into a dumpster below. As if held in a state of suspension, the sculptures depict the repeated twists and turns of the shingles as they fell, speaking to the cyclical relationship between destruction and renewal, loss and resilience. The artist worked on this installation in close collaboration with her father, Roberto Castillo, who engineered the equilibrium and strength necessary to hold each shingle in place. For the artist, this gesture honors the reciprocal support often found in working class, immigrant families and expands upon Castillo’s desire to preserve cultural and familial knowledge, even amid ongoing erasure. 

Also on view are a suite of photographs that loosely situate the sculptures within a composite landscape. In one image, we encounter the facade of an LA apartment adorned with decorative wrought-iron fencing and cast in a red, clandestine glow. In another, taken in Mexico, a rebar pillar constructed by Castillo’s grandfather ascends toward an expansive blue sky, suggesting a building in progress. In the third photograph, we see Castillo’s own writing and reflections embedded in the sidewalk. Together, this imagery calls attention to the disparity between the lives of those who build the roof and those who live in the comfort of its shelter. 

Evoking both the scaffold and the debris, the repair and the ruin, Through the Descent, Like the Return maintains a sense of impermanence and instability reflective of historical and material changes in a built environment, as well as the precarious and often invisible labor responsible for its making, unmaking, and rebuilding.