“Encarnar la ferida” [Embodying the wound], from the cymbionte col·lectiv_, and “Un archivo inexistente” [A non-existent archive], by Felipe Rivas San Martín, are the two exhibitions which can be seen at the Barcelona LGBTI Centre from 14 March to 31 May.
Both exhibitions reflect on the different ways of leaving a record, generating archives and constructing memories, be it through tales of intimacy or imagining possible pasts.
The exhibitions form part of the new programme of activities at the LGBTI Centre, entitled “interferències. memòries col·lectives [interferences. Collecive memories]”, the aim of which is to construct memories that have been left out of the official discourse, ensuring they are plural and conjugated in the present.
“Encarnar la ferida” [Embodying the wound]is a photographic project that focuses on the transformation of the emotional bond resulting from a mastectomy in a gender dissident person.
Using single-use analogue cameras, a collective corporal archive is generated that avoids the romanticisation of care and shows the complexity of these experiences for neurodivergence. In a tender way, a complex dialogue is established with humour, depersonalisation, pain and disfunctionality.
Steering clear of universalisation and making public what should be a domestic or private experience, this exhibition politicises intimacy and creates an everyday story as a personal memory.
The exhibition has been put together by the cymbionte col·lectiv_, an artistic and curatorial collective whose work is based on situated experience and the activation of queer methodologies.
For its part, the project “Un archivo inexistente” [A non-existent archive] features a series of fictitious images of homosexual couples and queer or non-binary and working class people, situated in the early 20th century in Latin America. The photographs were created using generative Artificial Intelligence which means they do not feature real people.
It is a retro-futuristic’ exercise that uses computational algorithms – a technology usually immersed in stories of the future – to reimagine our local queer past and to reclaim an archive that could not even have existed.
For, as the Cuban-North American critic José Esteban Muñoz explained, one of the consequences of heteronormative culture is that queer experiences from the past were barely ever recorded or archived. This negation of the archive is even starker for people from the Global South and working classes.
The exhibition is the work of Felipe Rivas San Martín, a Chilean visual artist, essayist and sexual dissidence activist.
Admission to the two exhibitions is free of charge and they can be visited freely until 31 May, during the opening hours of the LGBTI Centre:
Mondays: from 3.30 pm to 8.30 pm
Tuesdays to Fridays: from 10 am to 2 pm, and from 3.30 pm to 8.30 pm
Saturdays: from 10 am to 2 pm, and from 3 pm to 8 pm
See the full programme of “interferències.memòries col·lectives” here.