Moliendo Moras, a performative reading by Julia Gorostidi

“What’s a myth? It’s a dream. And if it’s in the thought it’s that it exists.”
Extract from an informal discussion between the artist and the vice-president of the Cabildo Mayor Muisca Chibcha Boyacá: Fagua Combita Salas Castellanos.

On December 16 at 7 pm, artist in residence Julia Gorostidi presents Moliendo Moras, a performative reading in which she shares a pooling of living materials collected by Julia during her summer research trip to the Cundiboyacence highlands in Colombia. Moliendo Moras acts as a digestive system that helps to reflect on certain ideas that the artist is currently developing in Chigys-Mie, the work that will conclude the project she began as part of her residency in Colombia with EMMA. Using her personal experiences as well as those of the production team formed by Santiago Reyes Villaveces, Carlos Rodriguez Pirateque and Andres Medina; Julia Gorostidi shares a subjective and organic account of the first week of this journey where questions such as: What is memory and to whom does the past belong? How is an identity constructed and/or reconstructed? Who is the true author of an autobiography? The artist’s proposal will lead to the deconstruction of the myths and legends imposed from the past in favour of the construction of new stories through the development of a free narrative exercise. The session will end in Hangar Garden with a small ritual around the collective creation made by the attendees.

“Somehow, the identity of Indians and women is defined from the outside, and that is why resistance consists of self-definition.”
Sylvia Cusicanqui in an interview for EL SALTO, 2017

Chigys-Mie is a project that is rooted in the decision taken by the artist and her husband to change their son’s surname to rescue the pre-Hispanic origin of their paternal grandmother’s lineage. Halfway between the road trip and the performative journey, the project takes this personal anecdote as its starting point to undertake a journey through the ancient territory of the Muisca indigenous community in search of myths and legends where women can be anything other than necessarily sinful, impure or subordinate. By comparing the oral and written versions of the Muisca myths, the project wants to observe the different subjectivities that inhabit these stories, both in their transcriptions in the past and in their disclosures in the present.

To register, send an email with the subject “Moras” to juliagorostidi(at)gmail.com. Free registration.

The presentation will take place in the Ricson Hall in Hangar.

Acknowledgements: Santiago Reyes Villaveces, Carlos Rodriguez Pirateque, Andrés Medina, EMMA.