HABITĀR is a result of the virtual residence that Maria P. Vila does in AL Galeria during the months of April, May, and June 2020 in the middle of a world pandemic and under self-isolation in her apartment.

In this work, Maria gathers memories, experiences, and feelings of people she knows in form of audio messages and editing them together building a collective narrative, that is given to the audience in a series of audio capsules focusing on differents themes like time, motherhood, sexuality, among others.

Vila works around the concept inhabit and how fluid it can be, in a sense that people are responsible to give meaning to this concept as much as the space they're inhabiting, being that space a country, a house, a room, a bed or a body. Personal experiences will be constantly changing how we're inhabiting a place and how that place is perceived after we have been there, forming a symbiotic relationship between the self and the space that is inhabited.

Habitār is a work that is alive, is a process, an ongoing project, audiences are invited and encouraged to be part of it. It's Maria one more intent to explore the collective unconscious, this time in an audio form.

Antonieta Landa I Curator

HABITAR VII_ Luto / Mourning

[ESP]Hasta la fecha, más de 2,5 millones de personas han muerto a causa de Covid en el mundo. ¿Cómo podemos siquiera intentar acercarnos al sentimiento desolador de perder a un ser querido por un virus que se propaga por todo el mundo y que no sabemos mucho al respecto? No podemos. En un intento por entenderlo, entrevistamos a Marta, inmigrante mexicana que vive en Queens y vivió una cruda experiencia familiar a los inicios del Covid. Los 2,5 millones de muertes no son solo data. Son millones de historias singulares y desgarradoras. Esta, la última cápsula de Habitar, es para homenajearlas a todas ellas.

[ENG] To this date, more than 2.5 million people have died due to Covid in the world. How can we even try to approach the bleak feeling of losing a loved one from a virus spreading worldwide and that we don't know much about it? We can't, we simply can't. In an attempt to understand it, we interviewed to Marta, a Mexican immigrant living in Queens, who had a very difficult familiar experience during the beginning of Covid. The 2.5 million deaths are not just data. Are millions of singular and heartbreaking stories, and this, the last capsule of Habitar, is to honor all of them.

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HABITAR VI_ Kids

[ESP]¿Cómo están llevando la cuarentena? Estos tiempos son complejos (por decir lo menos) y a ratos difíciles de entender. Si es complicado para un adulto entender la incertidumbre en que vivimos, ¿cómo será para un niño?

En la sexta cápsula de HABITAR les preguntamos a niños entre 3 y 12 años qué piensan sobre el Covid, cómo se sienten al respecto y tenían TANTO que decir. Cómo los niños conectan la realidad y la ficción, y cómo interrelacionan la información que se les da, es impresionante e iluminador.

[ENG] How are you holding up? These times are complex (to say the least) and at moments hard to understand. If is it difficult for a grown up to see the uncertain we’re living, how is it for a child?

On the sixth capsule of HABITAR we asked kids until 10 y/o what do they think about Covid, how do they feel, and they had SO much to say. How children connect reality and fiction, and how they interrelate the information that is given to them it’s impressive and enlightening.

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HABITAR V_ Nature

[ESP]Habitar-Naturaleza fue una colaboración entre nuestra Maria P Vila y el artista sonoro Christopher Manhey. Ambos investigaron el papel que ha tenido la naturaleza en esta pandemia, cómo ha evolucionado, cómo se ha manifestado y cómo nosotros, como seres humanos (y parte de la naturaleza), en nuestra arrogancia queremos controlarla. ¿Cómo lo hacemos? La transformamos en numeros, contamos los muertos, contamos la tasa de contagio, contamos los días que llevamos en esto, contamos, contamos, contamos, contamos para tratar de entender y clasificar la naturaleza mientras miramos el inminente y abrumador desarrollo de la misma. Contamos para intentar salvarnos, y quizás este sea el momento de escucharla y no abstraerse de ella

[ENG] Habitar-Nature was a collab between our Maria P Vila and the sound artist Christopher Manhey. They investigated the role that nature has had in this pandemic, how it has evolved, how it has manifested, and how we as humans (and part of nature) arrogantly want to control it. How we do that? We transform it into data, we count the dead, we count the infection rate, we count the days we have been into this, we count, we count, we count, we count to try to understand and classify nature while we watch the imminent and overwhelming development of it. We count to try to save ourselves, and maybe this is the time to listen to it and not dissociate us from it.

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HABITAR IV_ Sex

[ESP]La cuarta edicion de Habitar habla de como la gente a enfrentado y vivido su sexualidad desde el confinamiento. Desde trabajadores sexuales a parejas estables de larga data, desde personales conversaciones de Maria con su madre, a la frialdad que puede tener el mundo online. SEXUALIDAD nos trae un vasto espectro de experiencias y puntos de vista que envuelven a la audiencia de una u otra manera, desde sentirse representado a sentirse incomodo. 

[English] The fourth edition of Habitar talks about how people have faced and lived with their sexuality in confinement. From sex workers to long time couples, from  Maria's personal conversation with her mother to the online emotional coldness, SEX is bringing us a vast spectrum of experiences and points of views that involve the audience in one way or another, from felling represented with it to make us uncomfortable. 

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HABITAR III_ Paternidad

[ESP]La tercera cápsula de Habitar nos llega como una suerte de continuidad de la segunda, Maternidad. En una balanceada secuencia rítmica de diálogos y confesiones, "Paternidad" brinda a la audiencia la oportunidad de comparar experiencias relacionadas con la crianza en una pandemia. Con sutileza, María nos entrega un punto de vista y nos pide al mismo tiempo que tengamos uno también.

[English] The third capsule of Habitar is brought to us as a sort of continuity of the second one, Motherhood. A balanced rhythmic sequence of dialogues and confessions ‘Fatherhood’ gives the audience a chance to compared experiences related to raising children on a pandemic. With subtlety, Maria gives us a point of view and at the same time, asks us to have one as well.

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HABITAR II_Maternidad

[ESP]En esta edición de Habitar, María nos muestra un retrato íntimo y sensible sobre la experiencia de la maternidad durante la pandemia basado en mensajes de audio que madres alrededor del mundo le han enviado. 

La cápsula de audio brinda al público un espacio para conectarse no solo con la experiencia sino también con los espacios donde viven estas madres y lo que esta sucediendo a su alrededor. Todo bajo la mirada de María como espectadora y sus propios sentimientos acerca de no tener hijos ella misma

[ENG] In this edition of Habitar, Maria shows us an intimate and tender portrait of the motherhood experience during the pandemic based on audio messages sent by mothers to her from different parts of the world.

The audio capsule gives the audience a space to connect with not only the experience but also, the spaces where mothers are living and what is happening around them. All under the eye of Maria as a viewer and her own feelings about not having children herself. 

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HABITĀR I_ Tiempo

[ESP]Vamos a comenzar Habitār hablando del tiempo y cuan flexible, inestable y movil puede ser especialmente hoy en día, que las rutinas han cambiado dramáticamente.

¿Que día es hoy? ¿Son las 3 de la tarde o las 10 de la mañana? ¿Almorcé? ¿Es sábado?. Cuan corto o cuan largo los días pasan durante el confinamiento es personal y cambiante.

Te invitamos a conocer Habitār a partir de la perspectiva del tiempo, cuan cuántico y abstracto este puede ser vivido.

[ENG] We want to start Habitār by talking about Time and how flexible, unstable and mobile it can be, especially today when routines had change dramatically.

What day is today? Is it 3pm or 10 o'clock in the morning? Did I had lunch? It's Saturday? How slow or how fast the day passes from this confinement is personal and changeable.

We invite you to discover Habitār from the perspective of time, as countable and abstract as it can be lived.

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HABITAR_ About

Acerca del proyecto HABITĀR. Escúchalo con AUDIFONOS!

About the project HABITĀR. We encourage you to listening to with headphones.

HABITĀR_Proceso

Acerca del proceso que condujo hacia el proyecto HABITĀR

About HABITĀR process