We are not territory of conquest

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Through our body-earth territory, knowledge and affective memories circulate that are linked and allow us to expand our desires in a communal way. We are not a territory of conquest invites us to awaken those memories and to recover those knowledge that is activated through art and encounter, and that establish identity. Summoning intimate spaces, corporality and food allows us to speak of the link between the earth, our embodied experiences and the knowledge-making through which we constitute, nourish, heal and protect territoriality, simultaneously linking ourselves with others, thus enabling the community and the good life.

The pieces that make up the multidisciplinary project We are not a territory of conquest are a performance, fourteen photographs, a video, an installation where the presence of the absence of performance continues to actuate, and a procedural artist’s book.

PHOTOGRAPHY

12 photographs of 50cm x 75cm. Digital photography. Fine Art Print on Enhanced Matte paper framed in reverse rod
2 photographs 70cm x 105cm. Digital photography. Fine Art Print on Enhanced Matte paper framed in reverse rod

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VIDEO ART

Digital video that activates millefeuille of images that recall the skin, the territories, the encounter, the absences and the experiences. For its development, a first video was made with shots in resonance with the concept. Later, it was projected on my body, at the same time that I was working with corn and filming the final video with a fixed camera. Regarding the sound plane, it is presented using the same procedures as the image, different sound layers that try to account for the depth of the territory-body and the territory-earth. Between these layers appear sounds that evoke those murmurs emitted by the movements of the organs within the body, the sound of the wind on the field and the eucalyptus trees, memories of childhood, the movement of corn kernels between the hands , the whispers of the skin and the memories that lodge in the folds of the flesh.

Duration:

00:01:29 To be screened in a loop

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PERFORMANCE

We are not territory of conquest is a ritual performance where I begin to peel corn, dropping the grains into a pot. Performing a small and powerful daily activity, an activity that we observe in our childhood to learn by looking, and that little by little becomes rhythm, song and ceremony. An encounter that goes from the intimate terrain to the collective terrain, and vice versa. A sacred act that allows us to bond with ourselves, with others, and with the entire vital field, where the actions learned in coexistence and community are activated.

For this, I use everyday elements such as the stool, the pot, the knife and simple shapes that can be put into play with technologies and primary motor functions and without the need for financial resources. I choose to work with corn, a kind, noble and powerful food of our territory, present in the fields near where I grew up, as a linking element between the territory, the body and the gesture, as a union between the land offered by the plant, the way of harvesting and cooking it, the embodied memory of the one who taught us to eat, share and assimilate it organically, until it became a constitutive part of the body territory, not only in terms of meat, but also as a form of existence.

The rhythm / song as a way of poeticizing existence and as a link between the folds of the body and the context, the others and the space where we find ourselves, circulating the vibrations of sound in an inside and an outside that are activated and unite in the body (with all its multiplicity) is projected back into space. In this way, the space is modified at the same time as who sings and who listens. There is no face, an indivisible one, but rather a community totality is achieved through the sound gesture. In the first years of life our way of knowing the world and making it flesh is related to this game of entering and exiting corporeality. Touching, putting things in the mouth, throwing them, hitting them, discovering in them a rhythm, a sound, looking for ways to sing to them to communicate. The world enters us and we enter it. The materiality activated by the ritual, the corn kernels, are transformed, and when shared, this transformation is continuous and multiple. Thus building a new experience that will be juxtaposed with previous embodied experiences, thus creating a new community memory.

The fabric that is under my feet, and that later will be the support for the body percussion, is slowly staining with the action and the liquids that flow from the grains.

I add a new layer of meaning by hanging the apron that is a mark of action marked by the words Neither the earth nor women are a territory of conquest and that is also a flag that is positioned from a politics of life, a worldview and a desire.

My body withdraws from the ritual, but the presence of the absence continues through the activated elements and the grains and chalas that continue to transform with their life cycle. The ritualized corn continues to activate, therefore, the performance becomes an installation.

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ARTIST BOOK

Herbarium of collective memories

Herbarium of Collective Memories is a 20 x 20 cm processual artist’s book made of manila paper hand-fired with waxed thread. It contains an inventory of dried herbs from what was my maternal home, their own texts and texts from invited women who add their voices as the book is exhibited in different places. This herbarium invites you to awaken the memories of each territory and recover the knowledge that is activated through the encounter establishing identity. Summoning intimate spaces, corporeality and herbs allows us to speak of the bond between the earth, our embodied experiences and the knowledge-making through which we constitute ourselves territorially and communally.

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Photographic record:

Lucrecia Gimenez & Fernando Pineda
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Place:

Provincial Museum of Fine Arts Emilio Pettoruti, La Plata.

Date:

September 20 to October 20, 2019

Curator:

Margarita García Faure.