Tarik Hayward’s work starts with technical research, a form of primitive engineering, an architecture of necessity for which the materials, and structural principles that bind them, express a logic of their own. Hayward stages natural processes, resonating with a multitude of strong, culturally connoted images. In his exhibition Serial Dilution at GUTS, the work pure life presented in banal PET bottles was inspired by Hayward’s dialogue with Ariana Reines. After reading his horoscope, Reines challenged Tarik to make a piece with water. The liquid inside the bottles, called H2O, is pure, but the filiation of its content (completely harmless and drinkable) leads us straight into the slaughterhouses. To frame the scenery, the artist draws a copper barrier called drop shadow whose dissolution -corroded by water- has already begun. Terms such as “dark” or “dystopian” might be called to mind. But this depends on the view taken of the world. Anyone disappointed by roses, growth, and wealth accumulation can also see Hayward’s work as a form of release from that continuous stagnation called progress.