I explore the body as uncanny and fragmented, social container, bridge and vehicle, sensuous and grotesque. Trickster of my own social, political, cultural, sexed, classed constrains I live the trans-locality of my performative self. My work has been driven by the existential quest of an affected-affective corpus where issues of gender, spirituality, otherness, and colonialism have emerged. Considering our relations and our 'being in the World' as intersubjective and intercorporeal my work explores the soma-politics of the encounter providing new spaces for negotiation to occur. Under the scope of ways of decolonising the body-geographies (de-linking from internal colonialism) I engage in forms of ‘aesthetic activism’ exploring relational tensions, systematic and the intrinsic forms of fear, the body's legal implications, modes of resistance and belonging, and patriarchy's roles and masquerades.
In my work the interrelationality with the 'object' is understood as another matter-spirit that encounters my own in a dialogue of bodies where layers of affect-effect are constantly produced from this encountering. My body and the object’s body enter in an interaction where the sensorial and the object’s memory are the pulsations that funnel the action. Tensions and recognitions, functionalities and alternative associations, and an exchange between the absence/presence of materiality in relation to the presence/absence of the Self are some of the explorations triggered. Traces of the encounter become the liminal object of a third space created in a specific time (duration)-place (site). Human/animal; subject/object; communal/individual are some of the dichotomies that become blurred.
RAÍCES CON ALAS Amor&Rabia... +lucha / +magia
In my work the interrelationality with the 'object' is understood as another matter-spirit that encounters my own in a dialogue of bodies where layers of affect-effect are constantly produced from this encountering. My body and the object’s body enter in an interaction where the sensorial and the object’s memory are the pulsations that funnel the action. Tensions and recognitions, functionalities and alternative associations, and an exchange between the absence/presence of materiality in relation to the presence/absence of the Self are some of the explorations triggered. Traces of the encounter become the liminal object of a third space created in a specific time (duration)-place (site). Human/animal; subject/object; communal/individual are some of the dichotomies that become blurred.
RAÍCES CON ALAS Amor&Rabia... +lucha / +magia
I am a performance and visual artist, curator, researcher and pedagogue. I have been trained by performance art practice, organisation, history and theory. I am co-director of the cultural centre for creation and radical pedagogy MATERIC.ORG and I co-curate MAR DE ISLAS performance encounter of the Caribbean. I am also in the curatorial committee of Latidoamérica Extendida: Europa as part of the Continuo Latidoamericano de Performance. I hold a BA in Art History from the University of Puerto Rico, an MA in Curatorial Studies, with a focus on Latin American performance art from the University of Essex, U.K. and a PhD in Art History and Theory from the same university.
I have presented artwork in Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, Greece, Spain, Finland, Cyprus, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Martinique and the United Kingdom: in the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Puerto Rico, Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, Km 0.2, Live Art Development Agency, La Muga Caula festival, FEM, University of Rostock, Tacheles Kunsthaus, Cell63, Biennal DEFORMES, PerfoArtNet Bienal Internacional de Performance, Festival Arte y Decolonialidad Abya Yala (Museo Colonial, Bogota), Festival Performe-se: Fronteiras Borradas/Fronteiras Erguidas (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória) among others, as well as in the suburban flow of the public sphere in San Juan (colonial and post-modern), San Germán, Barcelona, Madrid, Zurich and Berlin.
Since 2015 I live the art-life project Marina Barsy Janer x Isil Sol Vil / Isil Sol Vil x Marina Barsy Janer based on subversive Love and eXtreme Care (amOr Subversivo/ Cuidados eXtremos). Together with Isil Sol Vil we present performance art, installations, and audiovisual work. We have also developed a pedagogical line and share several curatorial projects. I have also collaborated with companies and artists’ collectives such as Hincapié, Casa Cruz de la Luna, reENCARNAción, Ocells al Cap and CORPOLOGIA, among others. Some of the artists I have had the pleasure of co-creating new worlds through art include Gonzalo Rabanal, Awilda Rodríguez Lora (La Performera), Laura Corcuera, Ainoa Mela López, Paloma Orts, Graciela Contreras Guzmán, Źmicier Jurkievič, Jimena Lloreda and Efraín del Hierro.
As an art facilitator and organiser I co-curated the second edition of EMPREMTA festival internacional de performance in 2017 that invited 2 artists per day to develop a performance with a same material. In 2016 I organised DECOLONIAL ACTIONS with the support of the Live Art Development Agency, where performance actions by international artists where presented as a starting point for a communal discussion on the current topics of everyday forms of colonialism. In 2013 I organised ‘MIND THE GAP: performative-symposium’, an event that bridged academic discourse on performance and artistic performance practice with venues in firstsite visual arts centre, U.K. and the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art. I was co-editor of the journal ARARA, Art and Architecture of the Americas for its 12th Issue on 'The Poetics and Politics of Humour in Contemporary Art of the Americas' and have worked for the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America-ESCALA as project assistant during the time where ESCALA organised the exhibition of dominican performer David Pérez karmadavis together with the symposium 'Art and Politics in the Hispaniola'.
*For more information and/ or CV please CONTACT ME at: marina.barsy@gmail.com
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I have presented artwork in Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, Greece, Spain, Finland, Cyprus, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Martinique and the United Kingdom: in the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Puerto Rico, Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, Km 0.2, Live Art Development Agency, La Muga Caula festival, FEM, University of Rostock, Tacheles Kunsthaus, Cell63, Biennal DEFORMES, PerfoArtNet Bienal Internacional de Performance, Festival Arte y Decolonialidad Abya Yala (Museo Colonial, Bogota), Festival Performe-se: Fronteiras Borradas/Fronteiras Erguidas (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Vitória) among others, as well as in the suburban flow of the public sphere in San Juan (colonial and post-modern), San Germán, Barcelona, Madrid, Zurich and Berlin.
Since 2015 I live the art-life project Marina Barsy Janer x Isil Sol Vil / Isil Sol Vil x Marina Barsy Janer based on subversive Love and eXtreme Care (amOr Subversivo/ Cuidados eXtremos). Together with Isil Sol Vil we present performance art, installations, and audiovisual work. We have also developed a pedagogical line and share several curatorial projects. I have also collaborated with companies and artists’ collectives such as Hincapié, Casa Cruz de la Luna, reENCARNAción, Ocells al Cap and CORPOLOGIA, among others. Some of the artists I have had the pleasure of co-creating new worlds through art include Gonzalo Rabanal, Awilda Rodríguez Lora (La Performera), Laura Corcuera, Ainoa Mela López, Paloma Orts, Graciela Contreras Guzmán, Źmicier Jurkievič, Jimena Lloreda and Efraín del Hierro.
As an art facilitator and organiser I co-curated the second edition of EMPREMTA festival internacional de performance in 2017 that invited 2 artists per day to develop a performance with a same material. In 2016 I organised DECOLONIAL ACTIONS with the support of the Live Art Development Agency, where performance actions by international artists where presented as a starting point for a communal discussion on the current topics of everyday forms of colonialism. In 2013 I organised ‘MIND THE GAP: performative-symposium’, an event that bridged academic discourse on performance and artistic performance practice with venues in firstsite visual arts centre, U.K. and the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art. I was co-editor of the journal ARARA, Art and Architecture of the Americas for its 12th Issue on 'The Poetics and Politics of Humour in Contemporary Art of the Americas' and have worked for the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America-ESCALA as project assistant during the time where ESCALA organised the exhibition of dominican performer David Pérez karmadavis together with the symposium 'Art and Politics in the Hispaniola'.
*For more information and/ or CV please CONTACT ME at: marina.barsy@gmail.com
-----------------
MY WRITINGS
publications
-Pia Wiegmink, Andrea Zittlau, Marina Barsy Janer & Caro Ley. 2021 (forthcoming). “Border Movement: Transnational Performance in Practice”. In Katrin Horn, Leopold Lippert, Ilka Saal & Pia Wiegmink (eds.), American Cultures as Transnational Performance: Commons, Skills, Traces. Routledge: Londres.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2019. 'Becoming Doll: Radical objectification in the performance of Freddie Mercado'. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts. Volume 24, Issue 6: On Animism. pp.95-102.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2019. Movimiento fronterizo un performance de Marina Barsy Janer. Hysteria revista. #31 Cuerpos/ Territorios.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2019.'Destruction as Revolutionary Force'. ESPACE art actuel N° 122.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2018. 'Movimiento fronterizo'. Revista FRONTERAS #4 (julio-diciembre).
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2018. TRICKSTERS OF THE SPECTATORial: The decolonial proposals of performance artivism through the encounters with La Pocha Nostra and Freddie Mercado. Doctoral Thesis.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2014. 'Proximity in Body Geographies. David Pérez Karmadavis: Estructura completa'. In Connecting Through Collecting: 20 Years of Art from Latin America at the University of Essex (exhibition catalogue), pp. 26-27.
conferences
-'Hacia una revolución relacional descolonial/ antipatriarcal'. Presented in the "Taula Vórtex, Feminismes al segle XXI". Bòlit Centre d’Art Contemporani, Girona, Spain. June 2018.
-'Disidentifications of the Mother Doll: Encountering Freddie Mercado and the Colonial Wound'. Art History Department, University of Essex. June 2015.
- (De) Colonial Reconquista: national law over body politics' and further discussion of the project '(De) Colonial Reconquista'.
Conference presented at the 'Foro Permanente de Performance', Center for Gender Studies, University of Puerto Rico.
26 November 2014.
-'Everyday carnivalesque encounters: The embodiment of Freddie Mercado'. Presented in the work group 'MANIF-FIESTA: Festive Mobilizations, Movements and Protest', IX Hemispheric Institute Encuentro: 'MANIFEST! Choreographing Social Movements in the Americas', Concordia University, Montréal, Québec. June 2014.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: writings, press, interviews...
-Guillermo Gomez Peña, Saúl García López, Paloma Martinez-Cruz. 2020. La Pocha Nostra: A Handbook for the Rebel Artist in a Post-Democratic Society. Routledge: Londres.
-Quiñones-Otal, Emilia. 2019. 'Women’s bodies as dominated territories: Intersectionality and performance in contemporary art from Mexico, Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean'. Arte, Individuo y Sociedad 31(3): 677-693.
- Els deixebles de Marcel Duchamp.2019. Josep Pérez (dir.) Spain. (Documentary)
-Jaime Géliga Quiñones. 'Ser vistxs ante el silencia: visualidades en re-existencias en Puerto Rico a partir de Macha Colón y Marina Barsy'. Mesa: Soñando con pasados: Escrituras feministas sobre archivos, memorias y silencios. XII Coloquio Nacional sobre las mujeres. Programa de Estudios de Mujer y Género, Facultad de Estudios Generales, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. 3-5 April 2019.
-Catalogue Activism: Action reAction. PerfoArtNet International Biennial of Performance 2018-19.
-Aquelarre. CuntRoll Zine #13. (December 2018). Portugal.
-Eine Reise zur Körpererfahrung mit Tattoos: Für Caro Ley sind Struktur und Tätowierprozess wichtiger als das Motiv. Tätowier Magazin. November 2018, p.50-55 .
-El paisatge documental 2017 torna al Museu de l'Empordà. Bonart. 23 August 2018.
-Street mural by art collective Morivivi inspired by an image of the performance (De)Colonial Reconquista. 403 Main St, Holyoke Massachusetts. August 2018
-Rosa Luisa Marquez. 'El cuerpo en los espacios urbanos'. III Encuentro Internacional de Investigacion en Artes, Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo, Guayaquil. (Conference presentation). June 2018.
-ARTISTAS PUERTORRIQUEÑOS RESPONDEN AL CONTEXTO ACTUAL DE LA ISLA. 2018. Artishock. February 23.
-“ENTREDICHOS”: nueva exhibición del MAC. El Post Antillano. 31 January 2018.
-El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo presenta una nueva exhibición. El Nuevo Dia. 30 January 2018.
-Jean Michel Quirion. 2018. VIVA! Art Action 2017. Espace Art Actuel. 12 January.
-Laura Corcuera. 2017. La ruta de la performance. 'Culturas y gestiones radicales'. Pikara magazine.
-Laura Corcuera. 2017. La ruta de la performance.' Lugar Materic Origen No Identificado'. Pikara magazine.
-La Muga Caula enceta el quart cicle apostant per artistas emergents. Bonart. 24 February 2017.
-Jorge Rodríguez. 2016. Arte y resiliencia en el MAC. El VOCERO. 08 November.
-Barbara Diaz-Tapia . 2016. The Body Begs to be Written: The Written Word as Agent of Ownership. Proximity Arts. 21 October.
-Pilar Parcerisas. 2016. Cos i paisatge. El Punt Avui. 21 August.
-Lisa Stertz. 2016. Absence, Tempting Failure Day 7. Incident Magazine. 31 July.
-Daniel Bonaventura. 2016. Dos artistes leviten amb fil de pescar a l'Empordà en un ritu de culte a la natura. Diari Girona. 9 June.
-Elecciones Coloniales. 2016. km 0.2. 24 February.
-Arnaldo Rodríguez Bagué. 2015. Foro Permanente de Performance: hacia una (in)gestión cultural de las prácticas del cuerpo en la universidad sin condición. (Master Thesis in Cultural Management).
-Liberate Tate collective. 2015. ‘Birthmark: A live unsanctioned performance’. (Catalogue). Tate Britain, London. 28 November.
Distributed during their tattoo protest.
-'Encounterings of the Tender' as part of the Art Collaboration with Manuel Vason in La Pocha Nostra's Athens workshop.
-Participation in REENCUENTROS: JAMS DE ARTE VIVO Y FOTOGRAFIA. # 10. A collaboration with Manuel Vason. Project directed by Guillermo Gómez-Peña.
-CORPOLOGIA No. 20 (October 2015). Journal of live art. Associació Gresol. Biblioteca Cultural i Centre d’estudis Creatius. Spain.
-Interview by Dr. Matt Lodder (University of Essex), art historian and tattoo expert, on '(De) Colonial Reconquista': body and law.
-Podcast and live conversation for Radio Huelga: Marina Barsy Janer & Awilda Rodriguez Lora in conversation with feminist
activist Olga Orraca and cultural geographer Prof. Rafael Rene Diaz Torres on the project 'Queremos Pon'. 9 March 2015.
-Melissa Rosario. 'Creative Interruptions: Public Pedagogy and Decolonial Praxis in Puerto Rico' University of Toronto.
(Conference presentation). 19 February 2015.
-Podcast interview by Rosa Luisa Marquez and Antonio Martorell.'1, 2, 3 Probando' Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico (89.7 FM).
16 January 2015.
-Mariela Fullana. 2014. Marina Barsy refleja la colonia. El Nuevo Día. 26 November. Video and photos by Luis Alcala del Olmo.
-Mariela Fullana. 2014. Marina Barsy encarna "la colonia" en su cuerpo. El Nuevo Día. 27 November.
-Ana Teresa Toro. 2014. Marina Barsy: grita la piel. Lapicero Verde. 1 November.
-Mario Antonio Rosa. 2014. Marina Barsy Janer: interpretando el escenario. El Post Antillano. 29 November.
-Podcast interview by Nelly Jo Carmona for WIPR Allegro (91.3FM)
publications
-Pia Wiegmink, Andrea Zittlau, Marina Barsy Janer & Caro Ley. 2021 (forthcoming). “Border Movement: Transnational Performance in Practice”. In Katrin Horn, Leopold Lippert, Ilka Saal & Pia Wiegmink (eds.), American Cultures as Transnational Performance: Commons, Skills, Traces. Routledge: Londres.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2019. 'Becoming Doll: Radical objectification in the performance of Freddie Mercado'. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts. Volume 24, Issue 6: On Animism. pp.95-102.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2019. Movimiento fronterizo un performance de Marina Barsy Janer. Hysteria revista. #31 Cuerpos/ Territorios.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2019.'Destruction as Revolutionary Force'. ESPACE art actuel N° 122.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2018. 'Movimiento fronterizo'. Revista FRONTERAS #4 (julio-diciembre).
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2018. TRICKSTERS OF THE SPECTATORial: The decolonial proposals of performance artivism through the encounters with La Pocha Nostra and Freddie Mercado. Doctoral Thesis.
-Marina Barsy Janer. 2014. 'Proximity in Body Geographies. David Pérez Karmadavis: Estructura completa'. In Connecting Through Collecting: 20 Years of Art from Latin America at the University of Essex (exhibition catalogue), pp. 26-27.
conferences
-'Hacia una revolución relacional descolonial/ antipatriarcal'. Presented in the "Taula Vórtex, Feminismes al segle XXI". Bòlit Centre d’Art Contemporani, Girona, Spain. June 2018.
-'Disidentifications of the Mother Doll: Encountering Freddie Mercado and the Colonial Wound'. Art History Department, University of Essex. June 2015.
- (De) Colonial Reconquista: national law over body politics' and further discussion of the project '(De) Colonial Reconquista'.
Conference presented at the 'Foro Permanente de Performance', Center for Gender Studies, University of Puerto Rico.
26 November 2014.
-'Everyday carnivalesque encounters: The embodiment of Freddie Mercado'. Presented in the work group 'MANIF-FIESTA: Festive Mobilizations, Movements and Protest', IX Hemispheric Institute Encuentro: 'MANIFEST! Choreographing Social Movements in the Americas', Concordia University, Montréal, Québec. June 2014.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: writings, press, interviews...
-Guillermo Gomez Peña, Saúl García López, Paloma Martinez-Cruz. 2020. La Pocha Nostra: A Handbook for the Rebel Artist in a Post-Democratic Society. Routledge: Londres.
-Quiñones-Otal, Emilia. 2019. 'Women’s bodies as dominated territories: Intersectionality and performance in contemporary art from Mexico, Central America and the Hispanic Caribbean'. Arte, Individuo y Sociedad 31(3): 677-693.
- Els deixebles de Marcel Duchamp.2019. Josep Pérez (dir.) Spain. (Documentary)
-Jaime Géliga Quiñones. 'Ser vistxs ante el silencia: visualidades en re-existencias en Puerto Rico a partir de Macha Colón y Marina Barsy'. Mesa: Soñando con pasados: Escrituras feministas sobre archivos, memorias y silencios. XII Coloquio Nacional sobre las mujeres. Programa de Estudios de Mujer y Género, Facultad de Estudios Generales, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. 3-5 April 2019.
-Catalogue Activism: Action reAction. PerfoArtNet International Biennial of Performance 2018-19.
-Aquelarre. CuntRoll Zine #13. (December 2018). Portugal.
-Eine Reise zur Körpererfahrung mit Tattoos: Für Caro Ley sind Struktur und Tätowierprozess wichtiger als das Motiv. Tätowier Magazin. November 2018, p.50-55 .
-El paisatge documental 2017 torna al Museu de l'Empordà. Bonart. 23 August 2018.
-Street mural by art collective Morivivi inspired by an image of the performance (De)Colonial Reconquista. 403 Main St, Holyoke Massachusetts. August 2018
-Rosa Luisa Marquez. 'El cuerpo en los espacios urbanos'. III Encuentro Internacional de Investigacion en Artes, Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo, Guayaquil. (Conference presentation). June 2018.
-ARTISTAS PUERTORRIQUEÑOS RESPONDEN AL CONTEXTO ACTUAL DE LA ISLA. 2018. Artishock. February 23.
-“ENTREDICHOS”: nueva exhibición del MAC. El Post Antillano. 31 January 2018.
-El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo presenta una nueva exhibición. El Nuevo Dia. 30 January 2018.
-Jean Michel Quirion. 2018. VIVA! Art Action 2017. Espace Art Actuel. 12 January.
-Laura Corcuera. 2017. La ruta de la performance. 'Culturas y gestiones radicales'. Pikara magazine.
-Laura Corcuera. 2017. La ruta de la performance.' Lugar Materic Origen No Identificado'. Pikara magazine.
-La Muga Caula enceta el quart cicle apostant per artistas emergents. Bonart. 24 February 2017.
-Jorge Rodríguez. 2016. Arte y resiliencia en el MAC. El VOCERO. 08 November.
-Barbara Diaz-Tapia . 2016. The Body Begs to be Written: The Written Word as Agent of Ownership. Proximity Arts. 21 October.
-Pilar Parcerisas. 2016. Cos i paisatge. El Punt Avui. 21 August.
-Lisa Stertz. 2016. Absence, Tempting Failure Day 7. Incident Magazine. 31 July.
-Daniel Bonaventura. 2016. Dos artistes leviten amb fil de pescar a l'Empordà en un ritu de culte a la natura. Diari Girona. 9 June.
-Elecciones Coloniales. 2016. km 0.2. 24 February.
-Arnaldo Rodríguez Bagué. 2015. Foro Permanente de Performance: hacia una (in)gestión cultural de las prácticas del cuerpo en la universidad sin condición. (Master Thesis in Cultural Management).
-Liberate Tate collective. 2015. ‘Birthmark: A live unsanctioned performance’. (Catalogue). Tate Britain, London. 28 November.
Distributed during their tattoo protest.
-'Encounterings of the Tender' as part of the Art Collaboration with Manuel Vason in La Pocha Nostra's Athens workshop.
-Participation in REENCUENTROS: JAMS DE ARTE VIVO Y FOTOGRAFIA. # 10. A collaboration with Manuel Vason. Project directed by Guillermo Gómez-Peña.
-CORPOLOGIA No. 20 (October 2015). Journal of live art. Associació Gresol. Biblioteca Cultural i Centre d’estudis Creatius. Spain.
-Interview by Dr. Matt Lodder (University of Essex), art historian and tattoo expert, on '(De) Colonial Reconquista': body and law.
-Podcast and live conversation for Radio Huelga: Marina Barsy Janer & Awilda Rodriguez Lora in conversation with feminist
activist Olga Orraca and cultural geographer Prof. Rafael Rene Diaz Torres on the project 'Queremos Pon'. 9 March 2015.
-Melissa Rosario. 'Creative Interruptions: Public Pedagogy and Decolonial Praxis in Puerto Rico' University of Toronto.
(Conference presentation). 19 February 2015.
-Podcast interview by Rosa Luisa Marquez and Antonio Martorell.'1, 2, 3 Probando' Radio Universidad de Puerto Rico (89.7 FM).
16 January 2015.
-Mariela Fullana. 2014. Marina Barsy refleja la colonia. El Nuevo Día. 26 November. Video and photos by Luis Alcala del Olmo.
-Mariela Fullana. 2014. Marina Barsy encarna "la colonia" en su cuerpo. El Nuevo Día. 27 November.
-Ana Teresa Toro. 2014. Marina Barsy: grita la piel. Lapicero Verde. 1 November.
-Mario Antonio Rosa. 2014. Marina Barsy Janer: interpretando el escenario. El Post Antillano. 29 November.
-Podcast interview by Nelly Jo Carmona for WIPR Allegro (91.3FM)
