Susana Pilar DELAHANTE MATIENZO
Sin titulo (Untitled), 2002 / 2022

based on analogue photograph); 5x (cca. 75 x 50 cm)
exhibition copy
Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Continua
© Susana Pilar DELAHANTE MATIENZO

Susana Pilar’s performances create quite radical situations to visually explore and articulate deep-seated psychological ruptures and social inequalities; in addition to decolonization processes, her works predominantly seek symbolic solutions and personal responses to a long history of violence against women. Two of her works are included in Emplotment (the other at the entrance). Sin titulo unfolded as a background project for her university thesis: at first glance it seems like raw documentation, but it is quite the opposite. The images reveal trauma: Delahante Matienzo uses visual art to delimit the unspeakable trapped in an emotional vacuum, and her artistic performance creates an opportunity for second witnessing (Nadine Siegert). Although it is a series that has eventually remained incomplete, for this work is a fundamental starting point for her later expressions. According to the official narrative of the early 2000s, violence against women within the family “did not exist” in Cuba; it would have compromised the spirit of the revolution. Starting out from her own environment, she tackled the national problem with her own independent research – unofficially, of course – within the Havana Criminal Institute. Although she was able to look at multimedia documentation of violence victims with the help of a doctor, she did not have access to the actual files and evidence. To underpin her project, she created a series of scenes based on her own imagination, reconstructed from real stories. With this turn, she wanted to act as a catalyst to speak out for women who were unable to speak out publicly because of their deaths. In the spirit of performativity she used her own body for the double-exposure images, which were made by a completely analogue procedure at the time.

KÁLMÁN Borbála