Origin Stories

2020, installation with workshop performance. If Not Now, BAK basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht. NL

Origin Stories explores narratives and articulations of belonging in a series of participative collaborative performances. They combine the stories of a flooded town, my family archive, a fish invasion, together with the exercise of composting waste. It is the concrete challenge of finding belonging in a particular physical space.

Here some general documentation

Installation view
Workshop-performance. Composting while the story plays out with the video projection.
Installation view
Installation view. In the image, the embroidery kits with instructions. Individual disinfected packages to comply with COVID measures.
Installation view
Installation view.
Installation view. In the image, the embroidery kits with instructions. Individual disinfected packages to comply with COVID measures.
Workshop-performance. As part of the performance I composted waste from BAK while the story plays out with the video projection.

Composting BAK’s waste and workshop-performance

During the exhibition, when the conditions of the COVID pandemic allowed, I gave a workshop-performance. After the video told the story of the Devil’s fish in Churumuco, we went on discussing and thinking together concrete ways to find belonging for this invasive species at BAK. To do this, I would bring to each iteration of the workshop-performance new devil’s fishes figures.

Throughout this process, I was preparing BAK’s waste for composting it with worms or oyster mushrooms.

Here some images of the composting process

Workshop-performance. As part of the performance I composted waste from BAK while the story plays out with the video projection.
Workshop-performance. As part of the performance I composted waste from BAK while the story plays out with the video projection.
Installation view. Pot used to collect coffee grounds from BAK, chopping board to prepare waste for the worm bin, pens for the workshop and table.
Workshop-performance. Composting while the story plays out with the video projection.

Devil’s fishes

These devil’s fishes where crafted together with my partner and children, using left-over material from previous work. Here you’ll find some images of the fishes after the workshop -performance, where the participants found a place for the fishes, together with a post-it with written motives, to belong to.

Here images of the fishes

One of the COVID measures that came to stay, hand disinfection stations.
The carpet here is part of Charli Herrington’s installation. The note says that here the fish will be noticed, receive care and love.

Video, The Devil’s Fish in Infiernillo

This video narrates the research I did with my family archive, tracking histories of people, of space to the devil’s fish invasion at the Infiernillo dam in Mexico.

The video here is a 5min excerpt.