The artist mediates between the viewer and the work, being an active subject in the process.
During the course, the spectator obtains his own knowledge with or without execution of a final object.
ARTISTIC CREATION FROM THE CONFESSION: MÓNICA ALONSO
Confessional art theories are what I use to work with 5 people for several months. I propose that we work with our own confessions and those of others. Through conversations, visualization of works by different artists and study, stimulation of emotions and feelings, each person defines their path and works on it. My role is that of a guide, a confessor without prejudice and a facilitator of expression. I myself also make a confession. None of the projects is signed, the level of communication reached means that the cases are assumed by the 5. The documentation that I use appears in the notebook: Artistic representations as a means for self-knowledge. Emotion feeling confession Confessional art.
What is presented in this Yellow Interior Cell are the 5 resulting cases: formed by the confession, a plastic object made by each author and a dossier with reference documentation.
Case 1. The envelope you never found. Confession: Materialization of the envelope you never found. Object: intervened Rubik’s cube. Dossier: The castrating mother.
Case 2. Fear of failure as an artist. Confession: The fear of failure as an artist. The yellow hummingbird. Object: yellow hummingbird. Dossier: The fear of…
Case 3. Location and transformation of a personal and safe space. Confession: Feminine plural – first person – past perfect simple. Object: Model. Dossier: The art of healing.
Case 4. Sex, working with the unspeakable. Confession: Fantasies about the unspeakable. Object: How a penis and a straw can take you to seventh heaven.
Case 5. Confession as social observation. The XXL heeled shoe. Object: High heels. Dossier: XXL heel or without XXL heel.
The design of the Cell is made by me. For the presentation and exhibition of the confession, it is necessary to create an auspicious place. The Cell gives the viewer the privacy to watch and be watched through their confessions. It seems fair to me that as a spectator you can participate with your confession. This is what the notebook is for: Artistic representations as a means of self-knowledge. Confessions of oneself and others. The confessions of others. WRITE YOUR CONFESSIONS.
Woman, 65 years old, 1 daughter.
Case 1. The envelope you never found.
Confession: Materialization of the envelope that he never found
Object: intervened Rubik’s cube. Dossier: The castrating mother
After talking about the confessable and the unspeakable, the author designs and immediately executes the proposal that is presented.
She recounts a personal event from childhood that marked the development of his affective life. Fortunately it is a complete story that ends in an equally complete work.
Around the age of 10, she suspects that she is adopted. What she interprets as a lack of affection on the part of her mother is what leads her to think so, as an explanation of this attitude. However, what did not add up was the physical resemblance to his father.
From the age of 10 to 12, he searched the house for the envelope containing these adoption papers and confirmed his thought, but never found it.
Her proposal was the physical simulation of having found said envelope.
He specified the envelope, but not just one, but several one inside the other and each one with its message, until reaching a conclusion, a closure.
At the same time, she talks about the figure of the castrating mother, a figure that he considers perhaps from the past but that she discovers reaches the present. I encourage you to look for documentation, said documentation is in the file of. The castrating mother.
Create another object, the intervention in a rubik’s cube with phrases about the castrating mother.
Woman, 45 years old, couple, 1 child.
Case 2. Fear of failure as an artist.
Confession: The fear of failure as an artist. The yellow hummingbird.
Object: yellow hummingbird. Dossier: The fear of failure as an artist.
The author, an artist, tells me about the fear she feels of failing as an artist.
She dedicated her whole life to creation, at 45 she takes stock, she did not achieve what she wanted and she feels frustrated and guilty.
We talked about the current situation of art, what the crisis of recent years meant, even being a woman in art.
I suggested that she works on that frustration, as her own confession, an expulsion that can even unblock creation, but can also be the confession of other artists.
We talk about the conversations you have with other artists, etc., common opinions, common situations. And that’s why she decides to make a story that collects all these thoughts. You will write in the first person but including the opinions of others.
We fantasized about what she would be able to give in exchange for being a great artist, what the limits would be. For a long time she had been fascinated by the history of the hummingbird in Mexico as a very powerful amulet. The result is the confession she writes.
Woman, 36 years old, couple, two daughters.
Case 3. Location and transformation of a personal and safe space.
Confession: Feminine plural -first person-present perfect simple.
Object: Model. Dossier: The art of healing.
Case of application of psychospatial techniques.
www.theoriespsicoespacio.com
After several conversations about an existential malaise latent for a long time, a place that brings together various experiences emerges in one of the conversations. A storage room in the family home where emotionally charged objects are found. He expresses the desire to work with certain fabrics that are found there, and that belong to the clothes that belonged to his mother.
I propose to work the space of the storage room with psychospatial theories.
It seems like a good idea and we decided to start.
First part: we decided to go back to the storage room, experience the space and collect fabrics from the mother’s clothes to work on making a model. We draw the actual storage room.
Second part: Instructions to draw the storage room before going to sleep and wait to dream it. We draw the dream storage room.
Third part: Transform the storage space into a safe and secure place. We build the space. Model made with the fabrics of the mother’s clothes that were in the storage room.
The entire process and the drawings are in the notebook: Case 3. Locating and transforming your own safe space.
Woman, 30 years old.
Case 4. Sex, working with the unspeakable.
Confession: Fantasies about the unspeakable.
Object: How a penis and a straw can take you to seventh heaven.
She was interested in the unspeakable. After several conversations about the unspeakable, we both came to the interest of the unspeakable located in sexual fantasies.
unspeakable
1. adj. What cannot be confessed, usually because it is embarrassing: unconfessable secrets.
unspeakable
unpronounceable, shameful, immoral, dishonorable.
This is how she began to work with the subject of sex.
It does two jobs:
-Shows her total interest and need to work with her hands. This is how the flesh-colored plasticine penis is modeled. How a straw and a penis can take you to seventh heaven.
He carries fashion and society magazines, completes the penis with a magazine clipping.
Fantasies about the unspeakable. Phrases of sexual expression that can be seen in the notebook Case 4. Sex, working with the unspeakable.
He decides not to sign the work:
“I would prefer that you not put my own name on the play. I would like to put a fictitious name, for example, Silvia Calatayud”.
Woman, 60 years old, couple, 2 daughters, one grandson.
Case 5. Confession as social observation. The XXL heeled shoe.
Object: High heels. Dossier: XXL heel or without XXL heel
This is a case of observation, doubt and need to understand.
Of what is and does not seem. From the subliminal of a social imposition towards women, like an absurd social game to be beautiful and sexy.
The shoe is a clothing accessory designed with the intention of providing protection and comfort to the foot, serving aesthetic purposes in a very important way. So what kind of shoe is the XXL heel?
The confession that the author seeks is in trying to give answers to her curiosity. It is not judging, but seeking and sharing.
FORMALIZATION:
-Make a pair of shoes that synthesize your feelings and thoughts.
-Make a complete dossier with what you consider on the subject, to discuss and share.
The hummingbird is considered in Mexican culture as the most powerful love amulet that exists. The tradition comes from pre-Columbian cultures and continues to this day with rituals adapted to the new markets.
One of my working interests is in the relationship between science and superstition, and Hummingbird Magic allows me to connect Western science with superstition, and shape how modern humans move between the two.
To address the issue I use the beliefs about hummingbirds in pre-Columbian cultures.
The play is the story of a Western psychologist whose patient commits suicide. Not being able to continue with the consultation, she decides to go to Mexico in search of other paths. There he meets a shaman who tells her about the hummingbird’s magic and how it can help her patients. Together they begin a process of obtaining hummingbirds.
We see the stories of 6 people who are afraid and obsessed by issues common to other human beings. This is how the hummingbird cures different ailments:
The red hummingbird gets love; yellow cures the fear of failure as an artist; flesh color the fear of losing beauty; blue removes anguish; white gets rid of the presence of death. People have to decide whether or not to kill the hummingbird.
The work is made up of the reproduction of the hummingbird as an object and the texts that tell the stories of all the people who decide to kill it, or not.
THE FEAR OF FAILURE AS AN ARTIST. THE YELLOW HUMMINGBIRD.
I have been working as a plastic artist for almost 30 years, I will soon be 50 years old.
From 20 to 40 I lived happily in the world of art. I had success and recognition, the best years of my life.
There was a moment, coinciding with the economic crisis of 2008, when everything stopped, the market fell, museums ran out of budget, collectors changed interests and everything fell apart.
A great fear seized me, the fear of failure.
Fear of both failure, failure of recognition and failure of wrongdoing.
I fear myself for not being able to accept the facts and coming to think that it is my fault.
I think I spend a lot of time going back to my obsessions.
THE FEAR OF ANXIETY, THE NEED FOR DRUGS.
I am 49 years old and I am a plastic artist. Anxiety, heartbreak, and panic have been with me my entire life.
I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder that causes depression.
I often feel nervous, agitated and tense when faced with situations of everyday life that do not represent a real danger. I live with a feeling of imminent danger that causes me great agitation and tension.
I feel disproportionate concerns that I can’t stop thinking about and can’t focus on anything else. If the intensity of the worry increases, I move to the level of panic disorder.
I have a generalized anxiety disorder that is projected into physical disorders: increased heart rate, rapid breathing, sweating, tremors…
Anxiety is already present in my childhood, I don’t remember my calm childhood, I remember it nervous, with multiple fears. Images of a restless child come to mind. Years ago every time I saw a child I said poor, now I see happy children and when I look at them I reconcile with my childhood.
When I was little the worst were nightmares. I dreamed that I was in large and deformed spaces, I had a feeling of immensity, of finding myself lost.
This feeling sometimes dragged on during the day, and I was very afraid to disappear into the vastness. I used to get very nervous and cry a lot, I still cry a lot today.
FREEDOM FROM THE PRESENCE OF DEATH, THE WHITE HUMMINGBIRD
I am depressed and despondent, I have financial problems. What else can go wrong? Have cancer?
You’re right! After spending the summer months with one of the worst relapses of my depression and anxiety issues and still not recovering, came the cancer.
It was in the month of September that my mind began to send me messages: I had something in my right breast. I couldn’t get it out of my mind and even felt pain, but the pain went away when I forgot it. I was given an appointment at the breast unit on October 4, my 47th birthday. I didn’t think it would be an unlucky day, quite the opposite. They asked me for a routine mammogram, the gynecologist didn’t feel anything. I have an appointment for December 15.
That day I was very nervous, upset. I felt an overwhelming desire to leave, but I knew, as in all other situations, that this was not the solution.
I went to get a mammogram and came out with the news of the cancer.
o.
THE FLESH-COLORED HUMMINGBIRD: THE FEAR OF UGLYNESS
I’m not ugly, I’m normal beauty but my obsession is that I’m imperfect.
I value perfection and harmony and I am not.
I always admire the other women that I see as perfect.
But what is perfect? Who am I to judge that perfection?
My references are female models, actresses, beauty canons. Its entirety is impeccable and every detail sophisticated. I only see its exterior. What will your interior be like? What will your personal appearance be like? They will be happy? It is not something that interests me particularly, I am only interested in its external appearance. If I hear any bad news about their lives, I reaffirm that they do not have an ideal life; some even recognize some complex. But this does not free me from my ills.
I remember that these thoughts begin in childhood.
As a child I saw myself, I’m not saying ugly, but unfinished, blurred. It was very difficult for me to see myself physically and the reference of my appearance was in the photographs, I was the one in the photo, that’s how I recognized myself and in the photo I was beautiful, what was not in harmony was my interior. I had a sad interior.
Until today the memories of my childhood are in the photographs, they are the only memories I have, the rest have been erased. There are not so many photographs either, I always recognize myself in them.
Adolescence is similar. I grow up beautiful but I find myself imperfect.
I look at every detail of my physical appearance and I want to change it. Every day I obsess over a part of my body and try to hide it, to make it disappear. I compare all other people’s imperfections and seek comfort for my own. I see the flaws in others and wonder how they can live like this. Still,
I see them well, happy. Clearly the problem is mine, mine is an obsession.
.
THE BLACK HUMMINGBIRD: RECOVERING THE WILL TO LIVE. HUNT DEATH. GET RID OF INSTINCT, IMPULSE, SUICIDE.
I am ready to die once more and I feel the need to tell everything that happens to me.
I am 47 years old and have been close to death several times.
I have written my suicide letter 7 times. It is my way of understanding what is happening to me, putting an end to it and reconnecting with life.
I have recurrent depressive disorder with suicidal thoughts.
Mood disorders, and particularly depression, are responsible for the majority of completed suicides.
One in two people who commit suicide suffer from a depressive disorder, which is why this is the most determining risk factor for suicide.
There is no single reason why people decide to take their own life. Suicide is the result of a series of situations and factors (social, cultural, psychopathological, and biological) that combine to generate a series of self-injurious behaviors that range from simple fleeting ideation to completed suicide.
My type of suicidal impulse is melancholic: it is related to a general state of severe depression, excessive sadness that makes me unable to appreciate the relationships I maintain with the people and things that surround me normally.
I am a patient with an “integrative” psychological style (in which the patient accepts the disease, takes responsibility, tries to understand it, is afraid of relapse but tries to take control).
I am the type of patient who, after many years of struggle, accepts mental illness and tries to fit it into his daily life. It took me a long time to get to this point… I have never had an active suicide attempt, although the suicidal instinct was with me many times.
After suffering from this disease for many years, I had to do great reflection exercises to be able to understand and accept what is happening to me and thus be able to continue living.
.
THE RED HUMMINGBIRD.
THE MOST POWERFUL LOVE AMULET THAT EXISTS.
We live in two different cities, separated by 1200 km, we see each other every 15 days. In the medium term, perhaps we can be together, it is our own jobs that anchor us to the place.
Meanwhile, I despair, I’m totally in love with her and I don’t want to lose her.
She is the most fantastic person I have ever met. She is wonderful!
Ever since we met, I can’t get her out of my head for a second. I go to bed and wake up thinking about her.
She is the only one I want, and although it was not in my plans, I fell in love with her.
I adore her! She is a fascinating woman, it is difficult not to be carried away by her. I feel like I’m on a cloud every time I’m around her.
It’s been with me at all times in my head for a month now, and the worst thing is that I love that it’s in my head.
I hope you never stop loving me, even if you’re not in love with me.
Love, desire and happiness, that’s what it produces me.
I love her so much. I like to love her even when I suffer.
You know you’re the only one I want and the only one I need.
When I’m with her it’s exactly me.
I wake up and all I think about is her.
And … what do you think about me?
