DESAPARECIENDO (DISAPPEARING) 2014
Siete días desgranando, contando, lavando, secando y moliendo 30,000 granos de maíz.
Seven days shelling, counting, washing, drying and grinding corn kernels 30,000.
"Desde el 2006 más de 30 000 personas han desaparecido en México victimas del Estado y el tráfico de drogas. El performance consiste en el simple acto de desgranar y contar uno por uno 30 000 granos de maíz. Para la artista no existe más "el cuerpo", sino "cuerpos" o "los cuerpos". Since 2006 more than 30 000 people have disappeared in México, victims of the State and drug trafficking. The performance consists of the simple act of cointing and grinding 30 000 grains of corn. For the artist "the boby" no longer exist, but has been substituted bye "bodies" or "the bodies"
VestAndPage
Venice International Performance Art Week 2014
Seven days shelling, counting, washing, drying and grinding corn kernels 30,000.
"Desde el 2006 más de 30 000 personas han desaparecido en México victimas del Estado y el tráfico de drogas. El performance consiste en el simple acto de desgranar y contar uno por uno 30 000 granos de maíz. Para la artista no existe más "el cuerpo", sino "cuerpos" o "los cuerpos". Since 2006 more than 30 000 people have disappeared in México, victims of the State and drug trafficking. The performance consists of the simple act of cointing and grinding 30 000 grains of corn. For the artist "the boby" no longer exist, but has been substituted bye "bodies" or "the bodies"
VestAndPage
Venice International Performance Art Week 2014
Artistas Ejecutantes / Performers Artists
Alijcia Khatchikian
Boris Contarin
Letizia Liguori
Lorenzo Dalla Valle
Silvia Cegalin
Agradecimientos / Thanks
Vest&Page
Prem Sarjo
Giorgio De Battisti
Julia
Wen Yau
Julie Vulcan
Barbara Campbell
James+Leisa
Tito
Enrique Ruiz
Caleb Gómez
Lugo kampe
A/D
Eames Armstrong
Gabriele Longega
Ilaria Zanella
Davide de Carlo
Alijcia Khatchikian
Boris Contarin
Letizia Liguori
Lorenzo Dalla Valle
Silvia Cegalin
Agradecimientos / Thanks
Vest&Page
Prem Sarjo
Giorgio De Battisti
Julia
Wen Yau
Julie Vulcan
Barbara Campbell
James+Leisa
Tito
Enrique Ruiz
Caleb Gómez
Lugo kampe
A/D
Eames Armstrong
Gabriele Longega
Ilaria Zanella
Davide de Carlo
“It is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves' footsteps guide the world.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Think of a sensitive motion but in its simplicity it confuses and disturbs flows and directions, a presence that can move the wind and the atmosphere driven by minor phenomena. Imagine, imbued with power and strength, the normal objects of your life (objects/things that you are used to see and use every day), elements so full of energy that only observing, or simply being in contact with them, causes a change in you.
Desapareciendo/Disappearing performance of the young Mexican artist Melissa Garcia Aguirre to which I had the opportunity to participate as a volunteer performer, is a long durational performance dedicated to remember and commemorate the 30.000 missing mexicans since 2006, in mysterious circumstances; human beings who have been denied the possibility of being and existing, the chance of live and to tell. Today (as yesterday and tomorrow) these missing people belong to a limbo whose thinking generates sadness, questions and voids.
Is the grain of corn (one of the most common and typical food of Mexico) that Melissa uses to remember the disappeared, in fact, every grain of corn corresponds to one disappeared and the objective of the work is to be able to grind 30.000 grains to evoke the dissolution of the body and its disappearance.
The performance is articulated in five actions, all carried out at the same time, and dedicated to the "care" of corn. The first action is to shelling the cobs gently, one by one the grains of corn are removed with extreme slowness, then they fall into a bowl producing a hissing noise that evokes the sound of rain. I’ve personally interpreted this action as a first sign of separation of the human being from the structure that once included him: the society.
The disappeared, in fact, is denuded of his identity in the same moment that he’s taken from his culture and his origin, it has lost (maybe forever) the contact with everything to which was related.More precisely, the purpose of Desapareciendo/Disappearing is to remember the disappeared, denounce their absence and give them the respect they deserve, so the second action is to individually count all the corn kernels and mark the amount, to reinforce the idea that the number 30.000 is formed by the sum of a multitude of 1, yet again we don't have to forget to give the right value to every single grain. Every disappeared deserves to be remembered as one and unrepeatable.
The third action (which in my personal experience was the first one I done) is to wash and clean the corns, a poetic, loving and intimate gesture that aroused emotion in me. Immersing into the water the grains enclosed in my hands, I felt a sense of mingling with the corn, in fact, if at the end of this action the grains became clean and shiny, at the contrary, my hands gradually assumed an increasingly worn and dirty aspect. What had been of the corn now belonged to me and mingled with my skin. The corns then were left to dry (fourth activity), in my opinion this moment is important, because it marks a separation between what has been previously and what we will be in the future. In the prior actions we could see a particular care for the single grain of corn, the act of drying embodies not only the concept of delicacy but also the element of strength and decision. We could read this moment as the last act of life, the time that predicts the disappearance or as the last caress that accompanies to death.
The death, the dissolution of what was/what were in Desapareciendo/Disappearing is symbolized by the grinder that bursts with his big and intrusive silhouette to the centre of the space, it throws and hurts the spectator with its buzz and its redundant vibration, but this fifth action of grinding the corn is not harmless even to those who carry it. The physical and mental effort required to perform this task for three consecutive hours is unimaginable until you try. Honestly, I have to say that I never expected to suffer so much and fell a total sense of helplessness while I turned the millstone. Just in the first half hour I felt my legs yield and a so excruciating back pain that it seemed that all my bones were smashed, to give myself strength and support my eyes started to stare constantly at the centre of the mill in constant motion, trying not to think about the pain that oppressed me, I've tried to create mental images to forget what I was doing.. but it was impossible, the only image that came to my mind was about the black slaves working on plantations, bounded and forced to inhuman rhythms and disarming conditions.
Not only my body suffered but also my mind, in this fifth action there was no truce: every single grain of corn is grinded, becoming powder/flour, it was time for the disappearance of the body. I remember my feet covered gradually by the flour, slipping and losing my balance on the remains of corn kernels that I had guarded and washed with love in the days before. I associated that powder to the corpses: the 30.000 disappeared were symbolically there, in that corn and in that flour, around and near us, to give us strength and to be remembered for the rest of the days.
"I am, I have been, I will be" this slogan comes to my mind when I think to the performance of Melissa. A poem made flesh, in which the memory is the key to everything. It seems to hear the missing people in Desapareciendo/Disappearing, meanwhile touching, counting and washing those corns gives the feeling of embracing their ghostly bodies, to greet them one last time and say goodbye without return. "I am, I have been, I will be" this repeated with a scream the 30.000 disappeared from their unknown valley. "You are. You've been. You will be" this we reply to them.
Desapareciendo/Disappearing performance of the young Mexican artist Melissa Garcia Aguirre to which I had the opportunity to participate as a volunteer performer, is a long durational performance dedicated to remember and commemorate the 30.000 missing mexicans since 2006, in mysterious circumstances; human beings who have been denied the possibility of being and existing, the chance of live and to tell. Today (as yesterday and tomorrow) these missing people belong to a limbo whose thinking generates sadness, questions and voids.
Is the grain of corn (one of the most common and typical food of Mexico) that Melissa uses to remember the disappeared, in fact, every grain of corn corresponds to one disappeared and the objective of the work is to be able to grind 30.000 grains to evoke the dissolution of the body and its disappearance.
The performance is articulated in five actions, all carried out at the same time, and dedicated to the "care" of corn. The first action is to shelling the cobs gently, one by one the grains of corn are removed with extreme slowness, then they fall into a bowl producing a hissing noise that evokes the sound of rain. I’ve personally interpreted this action as a first sign of separation of the human being from the structure that once included him: the society.
The disappeared, in fact, is denuded of his identity in the same moment that he’s taken from his culture and his origin, it has lost (maybe forever) the contact with everything to which was related.More precisely, the purpose of Desapareciendo/Disappearing is to remember the disappeared, denounce their absence and give them the respect they deserve, so the second action is to individually count all the corn kernels and mark the amount, to reinforce the idea that the number 30.000 is formed by the sum of a multitude of 1, yet again we don't have to forget to give the right value to every single grain. Every disappeared deserves to be remembered as one and unrepeatable.
The third action (which in my personal experience was the first one I done) is to wash and clean the corns, a poetic, loving and intimate gesture that aroused emotion in me. Immersing into the water the grains enclosed in my hands, I felt a sense of mingling with the corn, in fact, if at the end of this action the grains became clean and shiny, at the contrary, my hands gradually assumed an increasingly worn and dirty aspect. What had been of the corn now belonged to me and mingled with my skin. The corns then were left to dry (fourth activity), in my opinion this moment is important, because it marks a separation between what has been previously and what we will be in the future. In the prior actions we could see a particular care for the single grain of corn, the act of drying embodies not only the concept of delicacy but also the element of strength and decision. We could read this moment as the last act of life, the time that predicts the disappearance or as the last caress that accompanies to death.
The death, the dissolution of what was/what were in Desapareciendo/Disappearing is symbolized by the grinder that bursts with his big and intrusive silhouette to the centre of the space, it throws and hurts the spectator with its buzz and its redundant vibration, but this fifth action of grinding the corn is not harmless even to those who carry it. The physical and mental effort required to perform this task for three consecutive hours is unimaginable until you try. Honestly, I have to say that I never expected to suffer so much and fell a total sense of helplessness while I turned the millstone. Just in the first half hour I felt my legs yield and a so excruciating back pain that it seemed that all my bones were smashed, to give myself strength and support my eyes started to stare constantly at the centre of the mill in constant motion, trying not to think about the pain that oppressed me, I've tried to create mental images to forget what I was doing.. but it was impossible, the only image that came to my mind was about the black slaves working on plantations, bounded and forced to inhuman rhythms and disarming conditions.
Not only my body suffered but also my mind, in this fifth action there was no truce: every single grain of corn is grinded, becoming powder/flour, it was time for the disappearance of the body. I remember my feet covered gradually by the flour, slipping and losing my balance on the remains of corn kernels that I had guarded and washed with love in the days before. I associated that powder to the corpses: the 30.000 disappeared were symbolically there, in that corn and in that flour, around and near us, to give us strength and to be remembered for the rest of the days.
"I am, I have been, I will be" this slogan comes to my mind when I think to the performance of Melissa. A poem made flesh, in which the memory is the key to everything. It seems to hear the missing people in Desapareciendo/Disappearing, meanwhile touching, counting and washing those corns gives the feeling of embracing their ghostly bodies, to greet them one last time and say goodbye without return. "I am, I have been, I will be" this repeated with a scream the 30.000 disappeared from their unknown valley. "You are. You've been. You will be" this we reply to them.
We don't forget you. We don't want and we can't forget.
30,000 flowers in the desert.
Review by Silvia Cegalin
30,000 flowers in the desert.
Review by Silvia Cegalin