HABITĀR, Reminiscences 2020

ART RESIDENCY AT FIELDS PROJECT 

CHELSEA, NYC _ JULY 2021

Over the strict six-month confinement forced upon Santiago de Chile, Maria Luisa collected via voice message the stories of people from all over the world, who provided their testimony about key pandemic issues. With this material, she edited what she calls narrativas colectivas (collective narratives) which are contained in sonic capsules and converse about topics such as sexuality, maternity, mourning, among others. 

In this occasion, Vila exhibits a first approach to the alchemical process of coming from sonic to visual. For this matter, she has written down the dialogues captured by the sonic samples and is displaying them as a fragmented manuscript, composed of diminutive samples that still hold pieces of our collective memory at their core. As customary in the artist’s work, these are archived, protected, and preserved for posterity.

Each word has been printed using stamps that Maria Luisa produces, letter by letter, to be a testimony to these stories in paper. By the act of crafting, she physically commits herself to the material submitted by participants, while she reflects on the paradigms brutally questioned during this universal crisis, such as the value of time, work and solitude.

Today, after the end of restrictions announced by the US government, Maria P. Vila resumes her customary practice: she extends an invitation to the community to actively participate in the piece in order to complete it. As such, we are invited to read the object as if it were a book, activating its performative role; while we are also encouraged to add our own reflections to the collection of psychic samples presented here. 

HABITĀR BOOK