Curatorial
Writing
Events
2. Quema
Curator
Quema - a live art performance by Dodi Espinosa
21.05.2023, Beautiful Distress House, Amsterdam, Netherlands
In dialogue with nature, Amerindian artist Dodi Espinosa led the public through a collective performance-action to close Mind the Gap on Sunday 21 May. Like the late Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta, who bathed herself in the makeup of trees, rivers, streams and dirt in her ‘earth-body’ works, Dodi works directly with nature as a gateway to his ancestral land, to uncovering pluralities of being, before the effects of colonialism. Dodi grew up in the rural town of San Martin de las Pirámides, near the pyramids of Teotihuacan, Mexico, and pledged this ceremony as a symbolic act of decolonisation. Connecting with his ancestral roots and the natural world around him, Limpia and Quema, was a vehicle for unlearning systems of oppression, like the gender binary fuelled by the Catholic Church, and machista culture. Copal, the sticky, sweet incense derived from tree sap, sacred to the Aztec people and seen as the blood of trees, was burned and released through the incense skull of the Aztec deity, Mictlāntēcutli. Dried red chillis, soaked with the intentions of the participants, were exchanged for fresh white carnations; a symbolic gesture of hope. We united on the banks of the IJ and birthed a fire that flailed wildly in the May breeze. The chillies, the black paint, the newspaper; elements of Dodi’s audience participatory project Invocation (2023) were kissed by the fire, gradually turning to ash; murmurs of grey flecks scattered along the horizon. This was the fitting swan song for Mind the Gap, a project about how art lets us navigate our emotions and mental state, especially for queer, marginalised communities displaced in a white, patriarchal world. Through reconnecting with the natural we can work towards more tolerant and progressive ways of being, as individuals, and a collective.
Part of the Mind the Gap side programming