MAGALLI SALAZAR

MAGALLI SALAZAR Auriga: metaphor of personal construction | Alameda Central, Mexico City | 18, 19 & 20 December, 2008.

Cities are ideological structures planned to foster models of social conduct, which generally condemn the corporeal. Its main function has been modified and has passed from being the support of urban life and community to a structure that maintains control over human activities. In contemporary cities, the use of vehicles, machinery and other technologies has been commoditized since they optimize the processes of economic production. In the same way as the public action is modified and restricted, from a small to a larger scale, the body has been replaced as an entity of relation or a source of production. With that, the notions of belonging and identity have been altered irreversibly.
In this sense, our city is the reflex of our corporality. This is, the ways in which we relate and exist. As a consequence of this reflection I proposed to create two pieces of public art, with the goal of stimulating the use of the spaces in the city while involving people who mostly weren’t familiar with art. For the first intervention called “Terapia física” (Physical Therapy) I offered a reflexology massage to passersby. In return, they wrote about their experience in two pieces of cloth, one representing the past, where do you come from? (left foot). and the other cloth representing the future, where are you going? (right foot). In this way, we could make evident the intimate and subjective experience of the participants in correspondence with an open and social experience of the body. In the second piece called “Auriga” I rode a bicycle taxi remodeled for this piece. Based on the disposition of each participant I transported them through stages inside the Alameda Central, on a ride involving self-reflection and enjoyment. Through the appropriation of two common trades in the city and combining ludic processes and certain symbolic actions, I sought to change the space of everyday to give space to an aesthetic experience.