2021+ is a participatory installation constituted by 2,021 bricks made from avocado seeds.

Between January and June 2020, Maria Elena Pombo collects thousands of avocado seeds from local restaurants in NYC. Each seed was washed, ground into an avocado seed powder, and converted into an avocado seed clay. This clay was used to make 2,021 avocado seed bricks, each representing a year of Venezuela’s history until the year 2,021

The bricks are meant to be re-contextualized on each environment in which they exist, just as history is always re-contextualized depending on the time/space from which it is evaluated. Representing years of history through bricks, with the intention to illustrate the infinite possibilities to re-organize and re-understand it.

2,021 was shown during June 2021 at the London Design Biennale at Somerset House, as part of Pombo’s project La Rentrada, which went on to win the show’s Theme Medal. In said show, the bricks were shown vacuumed sealed on plant-based plastic-bags and organized in a bookshelf as sort of encyclopedic tomes, organized by 5 periods chosen by Pombo: Maracapana & Co. (pre-colonial times), Pequeña Venecia (Spanish colonial times), Klein Venedig (German colonial times), Divorcio (Independence Wars period), Venezuela (post-colonial times).

The bricks stayed vacuumed sealed since then until August 2022, when Pombo was invited to show the piece at The Cigar Factory in Queens (USA), where participants were invited to re-imagine ways to read history.