Arquitectura corporal IV [Bodily Architecture IV] (2015)
Digital print on Baryta Satin 310 g museum paper
94.2 × 63.7 cm (framed)
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 2015.300-1
Arquitecturas Corporales [Bodily Architecture] comes from a concern about the body. It raises questions and reflections about identity, about the meaning that society gives to the body, about what it means to have and to be – at the same time – a body. On the one hand, as Judith Butler explains, ‘the body appears as a passive medium on which cultural meanings are inscribed’. Accordingly, the incorporation processes fostered by culture are acknowledged to shape the subjects of society, thus becoming the symbolic construction of the body. On the other hand, the body is also presented as a benchmark and yardstick of all the relationships that the subject establishes with their environment; thus, becoming the mediator between the outside world and the subject itself. Drawing on perception, movement, memory and presence, the subject has a bodily experience of the space and time that they inhabit. Both perspectives are present in this project, by means of creating of prosthetic-objects and of the explorations between body and object, in order to develop diverse narratives that question the sociocultural codification models of the present. In this construction / exploration process, the body is seen as a narrative space; and the very methodology becomes research, as multiple readings or narratives can be generated from a single object.
A ‘bodily architecture’ is a prosthesis, a structure made by and for the body. The prosthesis is a hybrid body and not only shelters, but also entraps the body. It acts as a bodily jail that precludes it, restricts it, conditions it, limits its movements and actions. But the body shows its resistance. The work depicts the metaphorical image of a body that withstands the weight of the wood, the dictates of the object and the burden of its role. In short, this project took 3 years of research and which resulted in a series of sculptures, photographs, videos and drawings. It began with the aim of giving meaning to the body and ended as a personal search for identity that provided an insight to the artist and how deeply her body matters to her.
In Arquitectura Corporal IV [Bodily Architecture IV], the object is similar to a princess dress, and the artist seeks to relate the pieces with the apparel – an everyday item with a social and cultural value – by means of a constructive solution that touches on sewing despite the materiality. In the photograph entitled Pensando en Penélope [Thinking About Penelope], the sewing narrative is bolstered as a woman’s body appears wearing this ‘wooden dress’ and sewing sections of wood. In this piece, both in the photography and in the video-performances, the narrative clings more to the tale, where two references can be seen – the myth of Sisyphus and the character of Penelope in The Odyssey. Referring to Sisyphus and Penelope is to talk about an act of resistance, both based on their actions, whether it is to roll a boulder to the summit or weave by day and unravel it by night, reflect a body that resists being subjected both to the will of the gods and to the dictates of society or in an inevitable fate, taking the actions of resistance to the absurd.
(Text taken from the artist’s website)