Missing 2016

Missing, 2016

 In this piece to be realize in Hamilton Ontario on October 11^th the female character will be Elizabeth Catherine Bagshaw, physician (b near Cannington, Ont 18 Oct 1881; d at Hamilton, Ont 5 Jan 1982). She had a successful 60-year medical practice after graduating from University of Toronto (MB) in 1905, but is best known for her 30 years as medical director of the Hamilton Birth Control Clinic. Cheerful and courageous, she accepted the post in 1932 despite opposition from medical colleagues and local clergy and worked with dedicated volunteers to provide Hamilton women with inexpensive and reliable contraceptives. Bagshaw received numerous honours throughout her long life, including an honorary doctorate from McMaster.  Missing is the first of a number of projects dedicated to bring to public awareness the role of women in different communities all over the world. The public intervention consists in posting all over a town(in this case Hamilton) posters of a woman, asking if anybody knows who she is. A web site with an explanation about each woman is provided. The project serve as a way to generate awareness about important women in their communities as well as to have a statistic about how much people in the community really know about their existence and achievements. The idea is to open up a dialogue about why women work has gone unrecognized or underestimated and if there has been changes in this situation in the last decades.

Cuando claman los cristales, 2016

Cuando claman los cristales

Citizen participation has a lot to do with the ways we understand democracy and culture. Participation is much more than to vote periodically. It involves to create ways to allow the citizens to have a say in what is going on in their society allowing some empowerment. Once empowerment begins to grow we realize that we do have actually a voice and that we can change the things that happen around us.
This piece is a metaphor to that power we have, transparent but strong.

La participación ciudadana tiene mucho que ver con las formas en que entendamos la democracia y la cultura. Más allá del concepto simplista de votación cada cuatro años, la democracia implica un entramado estructural que permita el acceso de la ciudadanía a estructuras que permitan su empoderamiento. A medida que desarrollemos esta sensación de empoderamiento llegamos a la conclusión lógica de que nuestros pensamientos e ideas son de interés para los demás y que a través de ciertos mecanismos podríamos llevarlas a cabo. El sistema actual de democracia carece de esta estructura y se ha ido deformando para alimentar a una oligarquía arcaica y avariciosa que pone en peligro la mismísima existencia de la vida en nuestro planeta.
Si bien esto parece descaradamente lógico lo cierto es que las clases oligárquicas han negado esta posibilidad fomentando la creación de la idea de que sólo ellos están preparados para la labor de gobernar utilizando el rancio discurso del miedo y aprovechando las estructuras implantadas a través de la religión por el monoteísmo un funcionamiento jerárquico obsoleto que suele derivar en comportamientos corruptos. En nuestro país con una carencia estructural de procedimientos democráticos, amplias estructuras religiosas y con vestigios de una dictadura de casi medio siglo este procedimiento de democratización pasa por crear de la nada.
 En esta pieza de intervención en el espacio público queremos durante quince minutos trasladar a la calle el clamor de lo frágil de lo transparente del cristal…la voz de un barrio que sonara, sensible y acompasada pero también potente y resilente invade todos los espacios.


video images

Trapos sucios, 2015

When we use the expression “Trapos sucios” in Spanish it relates in one hand to dirty clothes and in the other to secrets…secrets that you do not want anybody to know. The first presentation of this piece in Spain denounce the 1289 rapes that take place in the country every year and that have been communicated to the police and certified for a doctor. The experts believe that they are much more and that this number do not reflect the reality.

The silence of all the women that for different reasons (shame, guilt, pain, fear…) could not make a complaint is broken by the ones that can make it. Al over the world this negligible actions take place without a real outcry, hidden under the wait of hundreds of years of patriarchy.

Trapos sucios bring to the streets the secret keep in our societies, the secret of a terrible violence against women through the act of the rape. Trapos sucios take the streets to demand to the society to deal with this old and terrible form of violence, to be more aware of this serious problem and more action from our goverments to end once for all with this horrible practice.

"The king is dead long live the king", 2015

This performance piece part of the project "The king is dead, long live the king" is a piece presented in Toronto at Arstcape. The piece questions our understandings about democracy, power and relationships between them and the econmy.

Photos Ilse Gudino

Thanks to the support of CAAM, Colectivo Torornto and 

Alucine Film and Video Festival

"Dialogues with my baggage", 2015

This performance piece took place in Toronto during FADO Legs TOO, as part of the presentation of the piece"The king is dead long live to the king". The piece is a conversation with my personal history, with my experience as an immigrant and the evoution of my own life, from the years in which evrything I owned was in my bag to today, when my bagage contain just a part of my personal belongings. In the context of one of the most dramatic refugee crisis in European history Dialogues with my bagage explore the different meanings of a person baggage.

Facilitated by FADO Performance Art Center

Photo credit:Henry Chan

Thanks to the support of CAAM (Centro altlántico de Arte Moderno)

"The future is in your hand" 2015

The idea of death is someting that besides its simplicity scapes to our understanding. We live and die, but beyond all of that the future is in our hands (ironically).

La idea de la muerte es, a pesar de su simpleza, un concepto que se nos escapa. Vivimos y morimos, pero más allá de esta realidad el futuro está en nuestras manos, incluso irónicamente.

Photos:Thomas Proffe

Sonando despiertos. Dreaming awake 2015

La igualdad entre hombres y mujeres es una labor de nuestra sociedad en su conjunto, es un camino que tenemos que recorrer todos para alcanzar un objetivo que si bien se recoge en la mayoría de las constituciones, en la declaración de los derechos humanos y en nuestra ley de igualdad está aún lejos de ser una realidad. La pieza que presento es una metáfora de este camino, una manifestación de un deseo, un sueño de multitud de personas que piensan que una sociedad igualitaria sería más justa y coherente.

Este es un camino sonoro en el que unos hombres y unas mujeres vistiendo sus mejores galas recorren las calles de Vegueta el 7 de Marzo del 2015, representando un sueño, soñarán despiertos.

Equality Between Men and women is a task of society as a whole, is a path we must go all to Achieve a goal in MOST Stated That, Although constitutions, the declaration of human rights and our law of equality is far from Being a reality. The piece That I present is a metaphor for esta path, a manifestation of a desire, a dream of many people Who Think That an egalitarian society would be more fair and consistent.
This is a music path in which some men and women wearingelegant clothes walk through streets of Vegueta on March 7, 2015, Representing a dream, they will dream awake.
Fotos: Thomas P Proffe

Photos: Thomas Proffe