Installations
March 2002
Impermanencia-Impermanence
Exhibition and performances
Camac (Centre d'Art Marnay Art Centre), Marnay-sur-Seine, France
Impermanencia-Impermanence project: editions, videos, performances, 2002
During my residency in Camac, I worked mainly around two ideas, that of impermanence, that is, of life in motion, of the transient nature of existence (matter, emotion, and thought); the idea of transformation and becoming. The other idea was the creation of connections and dialogue with others through images and language. I considered my role as an artist was to generate narratives and relationships within the community. Different manifestations of these ideas have materialized through photography, videos, CD-ROMs, drawings and performances.
For Impermanencia-Impermanence, I went around Marnay-sur-Seine with a mirror that had the word “impermanence” or “impermanencia” written with honey. This series of snapshots registers the action (C-prints).
From 22 March to 16 April, I made a performance per week in Camac's gallery to generate encounter and dialogue with visitors. I repeated some of the performances around the village. All these performances are edited in a digital video, 13’24”, 2002.
Opening performance on 22 March 2002: I copied, by hand on vellum paper with honey, the Book of Ezekiel from the Bible. During the opening I licked the words in public.
Performance on 30 March 2002: I asked several persons from Marnay-sur-Seine and from its surrounding villages to write me a short word. I wrote the words using pancake dough and cooked them. In the gallery, I offered the words covered with honey to the visitors. I gave each person a different word than the one he/she previously gave me.
Performance on 6 April 2002: I wrote on my arms and hands short paragraphs about the human body from different perspectives (the paragraphs were excerpts from newspapers and literature). I gave the participants a written text explaining the performance and I asked them for permission to write on their hands or arms. Once I finished writing, I asked them to have the text read by two other persons. I went around the village repeating the performance.
Performance on 13 April 2002: I wrote “elle regarde” (she sees) on my eyelids. I asked the visitors to read my eyelids and to take a picture of me. In return I took a picture of them without opening my eyes.
Performance 22 April 2002: I embroidered the word merci on the honey written vellum paper from the first performance. I mailed them to visitors and participants of the performances.
El otro río (The other river) installation: I took a picture every day of the Seine that flowed below my studio window, keeping the same frame, for fifty-seven days.
Bo-ca-na-das (Mouth-no-Thing) video: the water in my mouth while reading paragraphs from The Book of Ezekiel, materialized and gave ephemeral shape to the pronounced words. Sound of the video was the digitally processed sound of my voice and that of the moving water of the Seine. —
