In 2016, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge launched a series of lines of research that sought to reconnect its institutional paradigms with the deluge of work from the artistic and activist sphere.

In the first stage (2016-2018) the Social Imaginary Production Platforms carried out many initiatives, and the second period (2019-2021) analysed the political and social uses of images and the history of the building where La Virreina is located, and explored the diasporic condition and the memory of the proletariat. We are now initiating a third phase that revolves around the work of the performer Tiziano Cruz, an artist from the periphery of Argentina who uses a selection of autobiographical markers to compose theatrical narratives that articulate multimedia dramaturgical components such as video and live sound resonance. Cruz has organized the theatrical schemes in complete solitude, recovering the memory of his body and the power of his Andean ancestors.

From 29 August to 3 October 2022, Cruz and his company will be installed in the spaces of La Virreina Centre de la Imatge to develop the third part of Trilogía familiar, an investigation on the role of the father, mother and siblings within a family structure in a context of social, economic and cultural tragedy in northern Argentina.

This project is made up of Adiós Πατέρας (ensayo sobre el recuerdo o la despedida), co-produced by the Argentinian Young Art Biennial in 2019; Soliloquio (me desperté y golpeé mi cabeza contra la pared), co-produced by the International Festival of Buenos Aires (FIBA) in 2022; and Wayqeycuna, which is currently under development.

We consider the stay of Tiziano Cruz and his company as a stepping stone in the format of research and cooperation in the institutional frameworks. Just as a certain inertia regarding the transmission of knowledge is reproduced by the museum and the academic interfaces and hierarchies, we believe that certain assumed rationales of consumption and public profitability should also be questioned.

Artists do not have an occasional, parametrized and merely utilitarian role in institutions. Rather, their practices “institute”, that is, they summon us to produce together varied forms of critical subjectivity through certainty and error, discrepancy and trial.

Despite its peculiarities, much of the research that La Virreina has carried out up to now has been related to discursive emission through the sacramental figures of text and image. We now invoke another epistemological and foundational location, that of the body and its stories.

The company is joined by Luciana Iovane, Rodrigo Herrera, Matthias Gutierrez, Luciano Giambastiani, Cecilia Kuska (of Rosa Studio) and Tiziano Cruz.