Voices in the Forest: an act of editing

Laura Vallés Vílchez

Voices in the Forest: An Act of Editing is a film record made by Laura Vallés Vílchez within the framework of the homonymous exhibition of Inmaculada Salinas curated by Joaquín Vázquez.

In the exhibition, Salinas presents thirteen new works whose common thread is the thirteen martyrdoms suffered by the girl martyr Saint Eulalia, co-patron saint of Barcelona. Salinas also invited Mónica Valenciano and Laura Vallés Vílchez to respond to the proposal through dance and editing. To do this, they inhabited the spaces of La Virreina for five days and shared moments in a sustained dialogue about how the disciplinary boundaries between their painting, writing and dancing are diluted.

The desire to reflect on this ecology of practices highlights what the philosopher Isabelle Stengers talks about in her essay Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practices, in which she recalls that, like all borders, disciplinary ones are also conflictive. However, instead of seeking to mollify the conflict, we can approach it through understanding and recognition.

Does the act of editing not consist precisely in giving structure to the tensions?

This film record emerges as an improvisational exercise carried out in the heat of meetings based on “poor images” (in the sense of Hito Steyerl) with no prior plan, no script. The material gleaned from one weekend in March reveals what happens when the borders between painting, writing and dance are blurred; what happens when the institution trusts the process.