Best known for his actions which he documents in various ways: videos; postcards etc. He also paints, animates and draws. Alys examines modernisation in latin America and the cycles of promise and disappointment that comes with it, he explores these ideas over and over in new ways but without looking for a specific point of resolution. He realised it was impossible to take a position as an observer without being implicated in the situations around him. So he actively began to address local politics.
When I decided to step out of the field of architecture, my first impulse was not to add to the city, but more to absorb what already was there, to work with the residues, or with the negative spaces, the holes, the spaces in between.
He often wondered the streets of his cities photographing things. Walking brings a rich state of conciousness, in our digital age, it is also one of the last private spaces.
-Looking Up, Alys stood looking upwards at nothing in a square in Mexico City until a crowd of people did the same.
-Nightwatch, Let lose a fox in Tate Britain. Caught on CCTV.
-Sometimes Making Something Leads To Nothing, Pusing a giant ice cube round Mexico City until it melted.
-When Faith Moves Mountains, 500 volunteers with spades in a line digging a huge sand dune so it moves a few centimeters in Lima, Peru
-The Green Line, Alys walked along the 1948 armistace line between Isreal and Palestine trailing a line of green paint behind him.
-Sleepers (1999), photographed homeless people representing them as 'unexpected energies' due to the creative ways they appropriated unsued portions of the streets.
- He bought a gun and held in full view while walking the streets of mexico city until he was picked up by the police. However, he told the police it was a piece of art and persuaded them to reconstruct the whole thing again the next day.
http://www.francisalys.com/
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