Stenke’s and Pagnes’ intimate connection with body and language is evident in each of their projects. Their works are charged with aesthetic theory and personal philosophy, and it is the atmosphere of intimacy that they create through working on complex themes such as abuse, contamination, death, solitude, fragility, exclusion and rejection, and which produces a trust between the spectator and the artists. A link is made between the experiences of the artists and the personal history of the performance’s testimonies. It is in this communicative act without words that lies the possibility to confront our fears. Verena and Andrea of the sensitive bodies are searching for other sentients between those that observe them acting.
Jessica Berlanga Taylor, Curator Proyecto Liquido, Mexico City
FEAR vs LOVE vs FEAR
2012, 24-hour performance
Comissioned by Fundación Alumnos47, Mexico City, MX
On the occasion of Proyecto Liquido. Miedo. Curated by Jessica Berlanga Taylor
June 2012
VestAndPage inhabit a disused house in San Miguel Chapultepec, Mexico City, for the duration of one day and one night. Visitors are free to enter and exit the house at anytime. Each room of the two floors hosts an installation, inside which Stenke and Pagnes intervene during the course of the 24 hours. Before the performance, VestAndPage had held a 6-days intensive workshop with street girls, inquiring with them about fears, desires and dreams. The resulting video and text material, and puppets produced by the girls, became part of the installation. The project is inspired by a psychology theory stating that only two basic human emotions exist: Fear and Love, and that all other emotions are aberrations of one of these.
Photographs by Lorena Alcaraz M., Courtesy Fundación Alumnos47
+ Catalogue publication Proyecto Liquido. Fear. from Turner Libros. ISBN: 978-84-15832-65-2. Euro 28.-