Seven days since Ayumi and Peter gave us our first breaths and encouraged us to consider how we might walk together. That night, while seated at a potluck at Platypus House, Rodrigo showed me an image of a clay figurine based on a pre-Columbian burial object common to central Mexico.
Each time Rodrigo makes this figurine, it differs slightly from the previous version. What remains the same is the process by which he makes it, which is modular: the legs, the trunk of the body, the head and the head dress. Rodrigo's intention is to scan this figurine towards the making of its three-dimensional print.
Wednesday was the first of our weekly round tables, and Rodrigo was the first presenter. The topic was multiple conceptions of the body and how one or more of them might influence the making of a work. Rodrigo began by asking, "Is a body always a collective? And if so, how does it think?"
As we thought about this, Rodrigo told us about Ayotzi 68, a collective he belongs to whose name is drawn from Mexican students who have disappeared. Rodrigo insists this disappearance is in fact a "massacre" -- not a random act of violence, but a "systemic" one.
"Death brings us together," says Rodrigo. "Indignity makes us think."
No comments:
Post a Comment