Regina José Galindo: Tierra

The Guatemalan artist who, for over twenty years, has been investigating the subject of social justice through the lens of performative practices whose expressive focal point is the relationship between the body and the environment. The exhibition, curated by Marco Scotini, follows on from those by the Indian artist, Navjot Altaf, and the Indonesian artist Arahmaiani in the investigation of the specific relationships that exist between environmental exploitation and oppressed peoples, decentralising the gaze as it goes beyond the geographical and cultural boundaries of the so-called West.

The exhibition covers Galindo’s twenty-year-long career, focussing on the ways in which every one of her contacts with natural elements should be read in an intersectional and militant key. Amongst all the natural elements, the earth has a particular status of its own: Galindo’s approach avoids any essentialist description of the relationship between the earth and the female body. The itinerary displays the results of an approach that has evolved over the years, from an initial focus on Guatemalan socio-political problems, to a (site-specific) attention to the contexts and communities with which the artist has found herself interacting.