Exercising freedom through acts
Friday, 14 February 2014 10:07
Written by Josefína Alcazar
As an artist and a human being, Santamaría seeks in art a means of capturing reality. For her, art is a process that enables her to understand life and the dynamics of human relationships, particularly aspects of power.
Indeed, the artist believes that performance inserts itself into reality in order to change something: a new, poetic act is a change in itself. Yet she also says that performance indicates something further. In it, as in human experience, everything is possible, but it presents itself as a paradoxical game between a free space in which any act can take place, and its differentiation from life. In performance, everyone finds a space in which to express himself and live out his identity.
Since she embarked on performance art in 1991, Santamaría has experimented with several aspects, in a constant research process. Her first pieces were very personal rites, such as one at the Second Festival of Performance Month, In the Dark, a farewell to her colleague, the photographer Ian Dryden, who died that year. She is currently carrying out longer actions that accentuate the importance of process.
Source: Documentary Series on Performance Women in Action, Mexico, 2006.