“Land-Body” is a projection-based installation drawing from work done in collaboration with 1000 Tiny Mirrors (F.A.M.) and Ryan Dennison in 2019. It brings forward the queer, non-conforming body of the land, particularly what often goes unseen: fuzzy plant trichomes, the stringiness of ripped wood, the textures of leaf after stem after seed. The intention is to become intimate with land-body (our home) and to see it in all its beautiful macroscopic form.
It was shown at GENERATIVE | UNPRODUCTIVE curated by Anto Astudillo
Generative/Unproductive is not oxymoronic: generative implies an openness that allows for the creation of endless variations of knowns or unknowns—rather than the outcome-focused goals pushed by productivity. In this encounter of moving image, poetry and live performance, Anto Astudillo invites a diverse group of artists of trans, non-binary, epupillán (two-spirit) and queer experience, to collaborate and be part of a multidisciplinary conversation, anticipated as “unproductive”: generating a gender fluidity-advocating ephemeral experience that opposes property and capital ideals by offering a healing and intimate relationship with territory.
Generative/Unproductive brings living organisms (microorganisms and human beings) and varied media together to engage in expanded and contracted “cognitive interactions” -as described by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. Each artist constructs variable landscapes where bodies interrelate across disciplines, proposing genderless and gender-variant perspectives that exude organic matter.
Live performances and video interventions by The Glad Scientist, Catrileo + Carrión Community, Theo J Rose, Riven Ratanavanh, Pau Aran Gimeno, stefa marin alarcon, Erica Schreiner, Grace Byron, Samay Arcentales Cajas, Anto Astudillo , and more.
Performance Space New York, Dec. 2023
Photos by Rachel Papo