Issue # 21 Natalia Iguiñiz
Curated By: Eliana Otta
Dejo Este Cuerpo Aquí I (I Leave This Body Here I) 115 Photographs (online archive) Inkjet Print on Bulky paper 10 x 13 cm, 2020
Dejo Este Cuerpo Aquí (I Leave This Body Here) is an intervention in the public space and a three-part exhibition. The first one Dejo Este Cuerpo Aquí I comes from an online photographic archive and portrays various uses of cardboard material in protests registered and held on several countries, these signs ask for help or shelter. The second one Dejo Este Cuerpo Aquí II is an installation with cardboard pieces that were placed in several locations, in the city of Lima; used cardboards were collected and recycled from family consumption or from warehouses and streets, then they were screen-printed with three parts of a woman's body and accompanied by phrases taken from Audre Lorde's Cancer Diaries. Finally, the last body of work Dejo Este Cuerpo Aquí III is comprised of photographs that record something of the life of the fragments from the interventions on the streets.
The work addresses precariousness, hopelessness, lack of options, fatigue, impotence, exhausting all resources and ultimately leaving evidence that we resisted. This kind of "last hope" sabotages itself by placing messages on poor access and low visibility areas. The material (cardboard) is perishable and the texts are not clear.
In cities, cartons are available to everyone, they are part of our daily packaging. They carry, bring and are garbage, like our bodies when we get sick, when we become impoverished, when we are discarded, raped, sterilized, mutilated, burned, and yet; the cardboard pieces are there to keep us warm and carry our most desperate messages and our anger.
Natalia Iguiñiz
Dejo Este Cuerpo Aquí II (I Leave This Body Here II) Inkjet prints on cotton paper 45 x 45 cm, 2020.
Dejo Este Cuerpo Aquí III (I Leave This Body Here III) Silkscreen print on cardboard recyclable material, variable dimensions, 2020
Un Cuerpo Ahí / A Body There
Whose body is it lying in the middle of the street?
Whose leg is that which I see when crossing the track?
Whose expressionless face is it?
What prevents her from opening her eyes and looking at me?
Is it fatigue,
pain,
impotence,
trauma,
violence,
hopelessness?
The anonymous woman,
Does she suffer in silence?
Does she rest quietly?
Does she regain her strength?
Does she remember her sorrows?
Does she sleep or dream?
Has she forgotten how to move?
Can’t she decide to stand up?
Does she expect to be awakened?
Doesn't she feel her parts?
Does she feel them intensely?
Is she trying to recover?
From extreme exercise?
From indescribable pleasure?
From a relentless disease?
From daily abuse?
From a rape, a blow, a scream?
From feeling exploited, attacked, threatened?
Or quietly thinks?
Imagines, thinks?
Does she draw on her mind?
A plan, a route?
An escape, a shell?
Recreates a caress?
Does she evoke tenderness?
Does she reconcile herself in silence?
With herself, with others?
Does she hear her heartbeat?
Does she feel her breathing?
Does she merge with the world?
Dissolved into the air?
Floating in the sea?
Does she foresee an end?
Maybe some beginning?
Does she survive in your gaze?
Will she get up tomorrow?
Eliana Otta
Eliana Otta Vildoso (Lima, 1981) Visual Artist that holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies by the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and is currently a Phd Candidate at the Phd in Practice Program from the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna with the project Lost & Shared: A laboratory for collective mourning, towards affective and transformative politics. She has exhibited her work in various individual and collective exhibitions, in cities such as: Madrid, Berlín, New York, Londres, Barcelona, Porto Alegre, Cali and Cusco. She has participated in residencies such as: Gapado AiR (Jeju, 2018), Capacete (Rio de Janeiro, 2018 and Athens, 2017), Sommerakademie im Zentrum Paul Klee (Bern, 2016), Meer Teilen: Share More (Zagreb and Frauenfeld, 2016), HAWAPI in Pariacaca (2014) and in Pisco (2013).
She is the co-founder of Bisagra, Independent art space (www.bisagra.org), and was part of the curatorial team for the permanent exhibition at the LUM, Lugar de la Memoria, Lima, Perú. She has taught at the Art Faculty, Universidad Católica del Perú and at Corriente Alterna. She is represented by Galería 80m2 Livia Benavides and was the founder of the first shop dedicated to young fashion designers in Lima, La Pulga, and has an eternally amateur alter ego, dj Flaquita.