Conquistador is a time based media work that hopes to address the contradictory and at times absurd relationship that humans have with nature. Drawing from the ideals of Romanticism, Conquistador’s hero encounters nature in solitude but instead of confronting the sublimity of untamed nature, he takes an active role by patrolling a landscape that has been altered by human intervention, suggesting that we have no nature left untouched, no place where to feel awe and self-reflection.

 

Conquistador’s subject is in the landscape for a specific purpose, he is protecting a couple of nesting birds, which are in danger of extinction. Ultimately, Conquistador critically synthesises the themes that Marina Velez is concerned with: humans as agents that look at nature from outside in, at times exploiting it to exhaustion, at times incisively extracting its secrets, and at times protecting it.