Artist Statement

My research is concerned with the politics of bodies and space with a ritualistic lens. I am interested specially in how different bodies are allowed or not allowed to exist within public and private spaces, specifically bodies of Woman.  I’m interested in the ongoing and ever shifting manifestations of invisibilised oppressions, which affect our existence in public and private, as well as invisibilised labour in the home. I am interested by how, in the “private” home the explicit roles undertaken by Woman have changed, morphed, and been invisibilised further through morphing to contemporary aesthetics. Repackaging, with the help of social media, rules and proprieties necessary when performing gender as women. I’ve found this content to be especially prolific among accounts aimed at young girls. I am curious on the extent of the impact this has on ever-forming social constructs, narratives, and cultural attitudes regarding what it means to exist as Woman, with much of my practical work addressing ritual, antithetical aesthetics to this narrative. Borrowing creation myths from my native Colombia, I combine this with folklore and matriarchal stories of my Galician homeland in order to connect with invented mythologies in which Woman exists as an omnipotent presence, being, GOD.

In an immediate context I find indignation at the feminine loss of existence and use of public spaces to be a catalyst for my research interests. For Women the streets have become a passing place, one where the pavement hurriedly and tensely ferries us to a destination and back, as quickly as possible . Avoiding eye contact and moving out of the way for everyone else- making ourselves small in the process and ceding the little space we have been begrudgingly and tactically allocated. I want to dive further into how invisibilised, psychological damage is caused during simple tasks like a commute or food shop through subtle violent acts- intrusively staring on the tube, catcalling and groping on the street, walking whilst watched from every angle. The streets have become violence.  Many of us sustain psychological damage before we even walk through the door of our workplace. I feel strength and curiosity in the fantasies and alternate realities that arise due to these deliberate acts of violence which I research, and how these can physically manifest in ritualistic acts of interactive performances and installation.( i.e: revenge fantasies and escapism as coping mechanisms through a Diasporic, Latin American, Magical realist lens.) I explore and look to create alternate realities where Woman walks free and unhurriedly in any space.