NADA House 2023

Orlando Estrada‘s “Tiered Panorama,” 2021–2023, is a kinetic, sculptural landscape addressing the ecological and existential crises of the 21st century through assemblage. The work depicts a miniature city divided into two stacked, circular tiers organized around a central lighthouse constructed of scaffolding—bound together by what looks like a mixture of Earth and ectoplasmic ooze. The perpetual rotation of the elevated upper level, decorated with strings of lights and glowing fluorescent flames, evokes the form of a whimsical occult time keeping device. Hypnotic and cinematic, “Tiered Panorama ”is both a shrine to Post-industrial life as well as an omen for the future world of waste, excess and runaway emissions.

Taking inspiration and its title from “The Panorama of the City of New York” by urban planner Robert Moses (permanent display; Queens Museum), “Tiered Panorama” was conceived as a para-fictional architectural model of a coastal city threatened by the rising oceans and societal collapse. Presented as a celebration of New York City’s infrastructure for the 1964 World’s Fair, “The Panorama of the City of New York” exudes a kind of monumental reverence for the built environment as one of the grandest achievements of humanity. In contrast, Estrada’s “Tiered Panorama” is a depiction of the built environment being retaken by the elements. Estrada’s postnatural diorama collages organic and artificial materials such as coconut fiber, miniature houses made from recycled cardboard, sea shells, Swarovski-encrusted bones, UV pigments, and 3D printed plastic talismans, creating a vibrant and gritty vision of modernity, literally glowing under the residue of Petrocapitalism.

Transformation is a central theme in “Tiered Panorama,” which expands on Estrada’s ongoing series of mystical, mixed-media landscapes. Using practical construction methods, ingeniously upcycled consumer waste, and digital fabrication technology - and informed by his grandmother’s extensive collection of ceramic Christmas villages and traditional Puerto Rican paper mache masks - unconventional art materials become power objects; elevating craft and domesticity to the realm of the sacred. Highlighting plastics as ubiquitous, if not foundational, to life today, “Tiered Panorama” is the artist’s reflection on contemporary social problems and their queer intersectionality within the discourse of natural ecology.