»Welcome to the opening of ›Backyard‹; the first survival clothing store for the Global South. The first boutique against disappearance. The first boutique to develop technologies that protect bodies and lives.«
Artists Laura Uribe and Sabina Aldana have dedicated themselves to the topic of disappeared people in Mexico since 2018. Uribe wrote a play titled CAMPO and Aldana developed a performative installation called Indumentarias para no desaparecer (Clothing to Keep You from Disappearing). When they began their research, the number of the disappeared was around 32,000; today it’s over 114,000. Initially they focused on the development of different performative strategies to raise awareness of the phenomenon of forced disappearances and take action against it but, considering this escalation, art also doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. In a performative installation, the KIOSK of the Maxim Gorki Theater will become a mixture of pop-up store, workshop and archive space in which Uribe and Aldana's research will be told at various stations. How can artistic practices be transformed into concrete actions? How can performativity be used to strengthen social action? How can we go beyond the mere visibility of the conflict to find paths for hope? How can we promote collective empathy when faced with complex realities?
