Placer, costumbre y obligación

placer, costumbre y obligación

collaborative research, 2020-2021

Collaborative and interdisciplinary research project developed together with artist Andi García Roque during the intermittent periods of social confinement, as part of the ‘La Fabrique’ artist residency at the Alliance Française of Lima.

In the context of the pandemic, have you asked yourself how your everyday routines have been transformed by COVID-19? What were they like before, how did they change during the pandemic, and what are they like now? And with those answers in mind, how do you think these routines relate to pleasure, habit, or obligation?
This project emerged from the need to reflect on the routines we carry out daily and how they are connected to practices of personal and collective care—whether performed out of pleasure, habit, and/or obligation. From this perspective, the interest arose in situating these routines within the pandemic context, in order to observe how our personal spaces have been reconfigured and, as a result, how our interactions with the outside world have been reshaped.

“Síntesis grafica de paisaje peruano en pandemia”
Acrylic paint on MDF shapes and paper
115 × 185 cm
2021

While investigating the transformation of our routines during the pandemic, I sought to represent how our sense of health and social well-being can be articulated through the graphic language of the everyday. To this end, I drew on the logo of the public social security system (EsSalud), the Ministry of Health’s “Wash Your Hands” campaign, and the traditional military camouflage print to recreate an iconography of the contemporary landscape—one capable of accounting for the political and economic hierarchies that have conditioned the lives of those of us who depend on public health systems. Through this graphic construction, I recall that the militarization of territories—embedded in every nation-state project—is a legacy of colonial processes. During the COVID-19 crisis, these processes worked to safeguard legal and economic frameworks that allowed a few to profit from the commodification of people’s health.

“Poner el hambre por el Perú”
Acrylic paint on MDF letters and shape
300 × 65 cm
2021

Graphic recreation of the campaign “Putting Your Shoulder to Peru,” circulated at a time when vaccine distribution was scarce and many people could not afford to stop working in order to avoid the spread of the virus.

“Expandir la presenta”
Gold stencil on garbage bags
340 × 136 cm
2021

This piece is situated within the context of the multiple crises unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic in Peru, where precarious sanitary conditions became a determining factor for those who could not access a “dignified” health care service. One of the first media representations of the intensification of necropolitical practices in the country was an image showing groups of lifeless bodies being placed in black garbage bags due to the absence of the medical resources necessary to save lives and the economic means to finance a dignified death.
I developed this work as an attempt to bend the bonds of the progressive promise of a capitalist “future,” recalibrating the dimension of our present time and feminizing the imaginary of what is to come. Thus, by feminizing time and evoking love as a fundamental affective resource in any redistributive process, I articulate a vital protest for the struggles of the present.

‘Untitled’
Digital collages produced in collaboration with Andi García Roque
triptych of 20 × 29 cm each
2021

‘Justicias’
Graphite drawing and cut-out on plant-fiber paper
25 × 30 cm
2021

Coinciding with the 2021 presidential campaign, this piece seeks to make visible the desire of the great majority of voters for a life in which justice does not correspond solely to a monocultural, Eurocentric bias. The pencil, symbol of the populist party Perú Libre—led by Pedro Castillo, a schoolteacher from Cajamarca, union leader, and rondero campesino—represented for many the illusion of a different horizon for the future of the country. Over time, these political representations have undoubtedly shifted, yet it is unavoidable that after Castillo’s victory and his failures as a national leader, the unilateral nature of the practice of justice has become increasingly evident.

‘Costumbre’
Sound-emitting foam mattress
180 × 90 cm
2021

Intervention on the mattress that was lent to me to sleep on after I contracted COVID-19. Embedded in the center of the mattress is a speaker that emits a sound similar to what I heard when my father required respiratory assistance from an oxygen generator in another room of the house. An audiovisual interpretation of the piece is available at the following link. https://vimeo.com/590793285

‘La promesa’
Charcoal and applied false eyelashes on paper
100 × 70 cm
2021

Drawing created as a tribute to the feminist cultural space La Promesa, located in the center of the city of Lima, which I used to visit before and during the pandemic to share time with friends and to live the fantasy of a safe place.

“Selfportrait”
Analog photograph printed with inkjet on cotton paper
50 × 70 cm
2021

Installation view of the project for the 4th edition of “La Carnicería”, a contemporary art fair held at Proyectoamil, 2022.