Horizontal / Vertical a work made for the 26th Cuenca Biennale, is inspired by the book by Italian anthropologist Stefano Boni, Orizzontale / Verticale, le figure del potere, 2021 Eleuthera.
Under the artistic direction of Ferran Barenblit
“Space is an essential cognitive dimension. It is therefore no coincidence that spatial representations are those that make the underlying power structure immediately legible. As evidenced by a vast iconography, the arrangement of bodies in space – at the center or at the edges, above or below, large or small – allows us to clearly grasp the social relations specific to a given context. And it is thanks to his anthropologist’s gaze that Boni was able to construct this original visual path that identifies, in time and space, the multifaceted figures assumed by a power with a hierarchical vocation and by an egalitarian principle instead inclined towards circularity. Thus, through an analysis of bodily postures, ritual choreographies, architectural structures and the many devices associated with top positions, an unprecedented history of that contrast between high and low that runs through both modernity and classical ethnography is outlined, to present itself intact today in the inexhaustible tension between the horizontality experimented by the new social movements and the hyper-verticality that characterizes global powers, finance first and foremost.”
This installation, made up of a set of reading materials (books, essays, declarations, manifestos, platforms), testimonies and interactions, aims to demonstrate how, alongside a canonical model of liberal democracy, considered the only possible matrix of government of the public space, practices of autonomy and self-government thrive, inspired by horizontal models of direct participation and radical democracy.
Many intellectuals, along with late David Graeber, such as the Uruguayan journalist Raúl Zibechi, accompany these processes from the academic world. These authors contribute on a global debate on democracy, and its failures and shortcomings, determined by what is defined as polycrisis, that is economic, social, cultural and ecological crisis.
Thanks to:
Stefano Boni
Rosa Cabrera
Gigi Malabarba
Tatiana Roa Avendaño
Raúl Zibechi
Ashish Kothari
Aria Spinelli
Photo Alexis Moreano
Global Alliance for The Rights of Nature GARN
Pacto Ecosocial e Intercultural del Sur
Global Tapestry of Alternatives GTA
Eleuthera Edizioni, Italia
International Tribunal for The Rights of Nature
Institute for Radical Imagination
Estampería Quiteña
Vikalp Sangam
RIMAFLOW
Imaginart
#ArtsForTheCommons 