All that I can wish for fits between my hand and the river

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This installation is the result of a project carried out at Residencia Raíces. Aconquija, Catamarca. I was interested in continuing my research guided by the question about the bodies and the memories of the body when it finds itself in another territory, another temperature, another time. The procedures for the research were guided by the exploration of gestures, rhythms and possible performative routes in dialogue with the vital space, the photographic/audiovisual record, the writing of scores.

 

This led me to approach the Del Campo river early every morning and act with a white canvas next to the water, the sand and the wind;

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In the afternoon I went to Las Lomitas to caress the mountains;

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to create an earth writing with the spirit of stones, rosemary, tangerines;

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to build an antenna to listen to other voices;

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to inhabit a nest at Las Chacritas.

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From these operations was born the installation: All that I can wish for fits between my hand and the river.

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Roma Vaqueros Diaz is a performer who lives in the City of Buenos Aires. The project she carried out in roots revolved around observing how body and landscape affect each other. During the residency she worked on several actions located in different areas of Aconquija and in the final exhibition she presented an installation where two videos of performances (Acción para encontrar una madre en la tierra and Acción para acariciar las montañas II, the latter in collaboration with the other resident Florencia Sosa Rey) dialogued with photos of actions in the river, scores placed on wood placed on the floor, soil extracted from the place on which she spread symbolic elements, and the canvas that was used for the actions in the river. Each element that was part of the installation kept parts of the landscape and the link that the artist established with it.

In general terms, a landscape is defined as a surface where different elements interact. In Roma’s works we see her body interacting with the wind, the river, the mountains, the earth and the stones, creating a new subjective landscape that emerges from that relationship. Nancy also proposes that the characteristic of a body is exposure, being exposed to contact with other bodies, then, a body is defined precisely in the relationship with others. A body is an unfolding, an exposure, a capacity to be affected and to affect: to inhabit a body implies being exposed to affection. In her works, Roma investigates this affective relationship between her body and the landscape, explores the interstices between bodies and wonders about the changes that this exposure produces. The artist works with a conception of the body as a totality that includes memories, knowledge and bonds; in Acción para encontrar una madre en la tierra she performs a kind of ritual with an antenna built with found elements (a branch and a stone) and puts her knowledge and her family history in interaction with the landscape, in an attempt to hear her mother’s voice in the wind; in Acción para aciciar las montañas she decides to invite Florencia, the other resident with whom she shared her stay at Raíces, and thus explore the new bond generated. Taking as a tool the relationship of the bodies with each other, each one loaded with experiences and knowledge, and the dialogue between the bodies and the mountain, the score written by the artist describes the action as follows: “At sunset/ head for the hill/ accompanied by a friend/ share mates, words and tangerines/ Then/ perform together/ action to caress the mountains.”

Cecilia Vega – curatorial text excerpt

 

PLACE AND DATE

How did it go at sunrise. Raíces Residence, Aconquija, Catamarca. October 01, 2022

PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORD

Cecilia Melnik y Roma Vaquero Diaz