Susana Botero Santos: FASCIARIUM (lat. fascia: connective tissue)

August 26, 2022
Stara mestna elektrarna, Ljubljana, Slovenia
in the frame of Mladi levi

lecture performance and participatory installation

The favorite optical illusion, or trompe l’oeil, of the last fashion season, was the dress of contradiction: A dress with a print of a naked body that acts as a “second skin” and offers simulacra and the illusion of nudity. Colombian artist Susana Botero Santos – Master of Textile Design from London’s Chelsea College of Art and Design – is not following the fashion trends, but creates her own vogue through the collection of drawings, images of anatomy, notes on the body, photos of human creatures, testimonies of body diaries (surgeries, traumas, beauty…) in a similar aesthetic to trompe l’oeil.

The performance FASCIARIUM (lat. fascia: connective tissue) consists of two parts: the first chapter is a lecture-performance, in which Susana Botero Santos narrates a humorous yet critical text about personal and human history through the perspective of her body. In the second part, the curtain raises and the artist invites the audience into a participatory artwork, a textile jungle laboratory, where spectators are welcomed by identity experts and given the opportunity to encounter their own bodies. In the performance, trends are not the latest but are experimental, naive, and humorous collections of human creatures.

Idea and direction: Susana Botero Santos
Dramaturgical consultation: Sodja Zupanc, Petra Hauerová, Cristina Maldonado, Domen Šuman
Human creatures: Mara Ingea, Domen Šuman, Daniel Victoria, Michał Salwiński, Kirstine Hupfeldt Nielsen, Aljoša Lovrić Krapež, Yu En Ping, Susana Botero Santos and local volunteers
Costume designers: Mara Ingea, Susana Botero Santos and local volunters
Scenography: Mara Ingea, Susana Botero Santos
Music composition and DJ: Andrés Silva Diaz
Lighting designer and stage manager: Carmen Lee
Content devised with: Michał Salwiński, Snæfríður Sól Gunnarsdóttir, Kirstine Hupfeldt Nielsen, Aljoša Lovrić Krapež, Sai, Yu En Ping, Mara Ingea, Daniel Victoria, Andrés Silva, Howard Lotker
Songs: Truth by Kamasi Washington, Juana Molina: Paraguaya Punk, Cero 39: Berlombia
Video: Human creatures: Mara Ingea, Daniel Victoria, Daniel G. Victoria Mancilla, Michał Salwiński, Snæfríður Sól Gunnarsdóttir, Richard Janča
Original music: Andrés Silva Diaz
Local producer: Ajda Koloini
Supported by: Evropska unija – program Ustvarjalna Evropa: Kultura, Create to Connect -> Create to Impact

Photo: Nada Žgank

More on Bunker’s website.