Celia Irina González

Lecture Abstract:

The lecture will present a series of artworks in which I reflect on political events from the perspective of a Caribbean anthropos entangled with other species in the Caribbean environmental zone. I find in the eyes of mollusks, the birth of trees, the amount of rainfall, the scents of local plants the opportunity to analyze the experience of life under totalitarianism. As a Cuban artist and anthropologist, I seek new references to understand the history of a territory that has been shaped by modern projects such as colonization, the nation-state, and revolutions. These projects have placed human beings, mostly white and male, as protagonists of the political world. In contrast, I am interested in the production of interspecies possibilities as a place of truth built on the lines between adjacent terrors.

Biography:

Celia Irina González [Cuba, 1985] is part of the artist duo Celia y Yunior. Her installations explore the ways in which institutions shape the life of citizens, ranging from the formal and legal procedures to the unspoken rules and informal practices that people use to make their lives work. Her art practice involves sociological investigation and the visualization of silent data and historical contradictions. A graduate from the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) in Havana, Celia y Yunior have exhibited their work in Madrid, New York, Jakarta, Santander, Miami and in the 2015 Venice Biennale. She has an MA in visual Anthropology from FLACSO (Ecuador) and a PhD in Social Anthropology at the Universidad Iberoamericana (Mexico). She divides her time between Havana and Mexico City.