performance / Guadalupe Aldrete
About the Performance
The performance Liquid Portal is part of a series of works that look into the intergenerational nature of somatic memory. Aldrete addresses the flexibility and fluidity of her body in relation to textiles and fluids. This performance references the flexibility of life itself, tracing its flow among family members across generations.
The movements and general composition of Liquid Portal are the result of re-discovered memories that manifested as bodily sensations, constellations of movements, and (what Aldrete calls) "visions", which encompass images, objects, and specific actions, such as blowing into containers or tracing lines in the space and the body.
With her work Aldrete seeks to establish a bridge between personal and ancestral experiences, contributing to a deeper understanding of intergenerational memory and cultural heritage, respectively and interrelated to each other.
About the Artist
Guadalupe Aldrete (1984 Guadalajara, Mexico), formerly known as Lala Nomada, is a Mexican multidisciplinary artist based in Vienna. Parallel to her training as a visual artist she participated in several performance and body awareness workshops with internationally recognized artists. She’s been involved in the creation and co-curation of festivals and platforms such as the Month of Performance Art Berlin, MPA B (2011–2015), Latitude 32N/55S (2013–2015), and currently the SMOM international performance art platform (since 2020), as well as the performance and exhibition programme of the Viennese performance art space Eindorf.
Her artistic practice is based on autoethnographic research, i.e. a continuous process of self-observation and analysis. Therefore, her works are not created as isolated pieces, but as part of an integral (performative) production process. This is reflected in the continuous presence of certain actions and materials throughout various works. Her body is her field of experimentation, her sample and tool. Since 2020, she has been delving into methods that uncover old memories stored in our bodies through somatic information. What began as an exploration of her own birth and early life experiences has evolved into a broader investigation of intergenerational information encoded in her body—be it through epigenetics or tales heard during childhood. This journey brought her back to using her knowledge of archaeology and history from a wholly different perspective. Aldrete is currently working this way to create her own paths to making ancestral knowledge available again, resulting in what can be described as personal rituals.