Being human

We know that our daily life evaporates with the river when it disappears. The monotony that gnaws and erodes the landscape, nourishes the culture groomed by it. Cuando el río arde (Ale Montiel), “When the river burns”, it remembers its path under the coal; ditch or cut, scar opened up and clean.

No words needed to keep its memory alive, tender reminders weathering under the sky awakened by thirst that is summoning them again, resurrecting the landscape from time to time like Ana Amado and Lois Patiño with the Lavadoiro of Galicia, recreating the daily life turned into architecture.

Our identity leaves an environmental footprint. Our existence swings from one extreme to the other searching for the balance that we keep breaking. Ancestors creak under our weight, like clay under the active present. El sonido de las piedras (Marcela Cabutti) “The sound of the stones” hurts and eases the pain simultaneously. Habits that beats us like the past does through our veins, like rituals we keep chewing, tough inside our mouths.

En la antesala de la conciencia (Sally Santiago) “In the antechamber of consciousness” we meet ourselves as part of the whole. Drawing the line that separates us from other times is an illusion or a dream that eats us up. After we leave, we still there.

Everyday life is a political place where theory and practice meet allowing our infinite contradictions. With the installation Un film flogista para Georg Stahl by Carlos Baixauli,, we witness the loop we are capable of, the extremely beautiful phenomenon of transformation that we keep holding, making us an inevitable part of the process.

Text: Araceli López