Dona-Arbre [Mujer-Árbol] de Fina Miralles: Recolectando conocimiento corporal.

Abstract

En este artículo sostengo que Dona-Arbre [Mujer-Árbol] de Fina Miralles, de la serie Traslacions, es parte de una secuencia de ejercicios y prácticas experimentadas durante las acciones realizadas en las que el cuerpo se percibe y experimenta cada vez más. Todas estas acciones son ejercicios para buscar el cuerpo en conexion con su entorno y con ella misma. Esta acción precede un trabajo que más adelante se centra en el cuerpo y que puede leerse como más abiertamente feminista. Mi argumento es que con Dona-Arbre comienza un método exploratorio del cuerpo y del entorno, y que este método es valioso para un feminismo basado en un autoconocimiento somático. Partiendo de metodologías encarnadas, investigación-creación y empatía kinestésica, utilizo teorías feministas encarnadas y de agencia, y tomo el concepto de kinestesia de Carrie Noland para describir las estrategias específicas en Dona-Arbre tales como el cuerpo inmóvil, kinestesia y micro-movimientos. Los interpreto como resistencias sutiles e instrumentos fundamentales para construir agencia corporal en el contexto de las restricciones políticas del cuerpo durante la dictadura franquista. In this article I claim that Dona-Arbre [Woman-Tree] by Fina Miralles from the series Traslacions, is part from a sequence of exercises and practices experienced during her performance work in which the body is increasingly perceived and experienced. All them are exercises in a search for the body in connection with its environment and with herself. It precedes her later focus on the body where there is a more overtly feminist political intervention. I argue that an exploratory method of the environment and the body starts with Dona-Arbre, and that this method is valuable to a feminist politics that begins from a somatic self-knowledge. Based on embodied methodologies, research-creation and kinestheticempathy, I engage with feminist theories of embodiment and agency, and take on Carrie Noland’s concept of kinesthesia to elaborate on the specific strategies in Dona-Arbre such as the still body, kinesthesia and micro-movements. I read them as a subtle resistance and pivotal instruments for building corporeal agency in the context of the acute restrictions on body politics during the Franco dictatorship.

El ser performado: lo relacional, memoria y ritual a través de una aproximación a las obras A idade (2011), La memoria del Ginkgo Biloba (2011) y Dona-Arbre (1973)

“…De esta manera, la performance aparece como aproximación hacia un mundo desde lo sensorial como forma de recuperar el cuerpo y verificar su existencia, una exploración desde el "yo" y el mundo, entre cosas "en su lugar" y cosas "fuera de lugar" (Vara, 2019).…”

“…Nos encontramos con una muestra de imágenes del cuerpo de Fina Miralles cubriéndose con distintos elementos naturales hasta quedar oculta, acciones que exploran los vínculos entre el cuerpo y la materia. Según Celia Vara, con Translacions, Miralles presenta exploraciones sensoriales y ejercicios corporales como modo de emancipación y agencia corporal (Vara, 2019).…”

Kinesthetic Experience: Emancipatory Corporeal Scores

“…The members of the University Human Research Ethics Committee (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) have examined the application for a grant to support the project "Emancipatory Actions: Video and performance by Fina Miralles (b. 1950, Sabadell, Catalunya)" (Certification Number 30005621-2016-2019, and consider the experimental procedures, as outlined by the applicant, to be acceptable on ethical grounds for research involving human subjects.…”

“…It is also the elliptical motion that describes the Earth's movement around the Sun. Translacions is a series of actions in which Fina Miralles moves elements to an environment where they initially do not belong: Deixada Anar de Cargols (Letting Snails Free) (1973), where she paints snails in groups and liberates them in a square in Parc de la Ciutadella, Barcelona, Spain on 1 November 1973; Flotació d'Herba en el Mar (Fleet of Grass in the Sea), performed in Premià de Mar on 11 November 1973; moving sand to a field in Duna (Dune) in which she moved sand from the beach of Sant Marti d'Empúries to a farmland on 18 November 1973; and Dona-Arbre (Woman-Tree), in which the artist's own body is transplanted to the middle of the landscape of Sant Llorenç del Munt, Barcelona (Vara 2019). The Naturaleses Naturals exhibition was first presented in 1973 in Sala Vinçon in Barcelona and then in 2016 at the Museo Arqueológico Natural.…”

“…In this project, there is an emphasis on the relation between natural and artificial materials. Fina Miralles explains (personal conversation, 2016-2019 that in this exhibition, she was showing natural materials without transformation (challenging the ego figure of the "artist" that "transforms" matter), artificial materials (imitation grass, etc.) and live animals with stuffed animals (here she carried out an action with dove-alive and stuffed-in which she opened a cage and only the ones that were alive started to move and leave).…”