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• SF APOCALYPSE

  BY LA POCHA NOSTRA

  In 2020, Gomez-Peña was invited to a toxic waste site right in the periphery of San Francisco that a group of anarchists had occupied during pandemia and turned it into an art space. The place includes a bunch of abandoned train wagons, an old Hells Angels clubhouse and a native plants garden curated by a powerful Lakota couple. It is an astonishing place. He joined the raggedy collective right away. And asked his long-time collaborator filmmaker Gustavo Vazquez if he was interested in making a film there. He invited Lalo Obregon, one of the original cameramen of Jodorowsky(El Topo, Fando y Lis and La Montaña Sagrada)...and together they put out a call: 25 performance artists, dancers and musicians showed up. The result is a half hour performance movie, a utopian/dystopian project titled “SF Apocalypse,” commenting on the collapse of the creative city. Performance film was their salvation during pandemia. The films they make are quick and dirty, and self produced. They edit them at Gomez-Peña’s kitchen table. It's like returning to the origins of underground cinema; an old Chicano motto from Gustavo Vasquez. “Minimum budget, maximum quality".
• MARE NOSTRUM

  BY CHANTAL SPAPENS

  For centuries, the Mediterranean Sea has occupied a central place in the evolution of human society and Europe. It is both a physical barrier to human mobility and an element that connects land and continents. Odysseus pursued his hero’s journey around the Mediterranean basin. Today, the Mare Nostrum is a precarious, tragic space where immigrants, attracted by the siren’s song of salvation and sanctuary in Europe, embark on a perilous journey that could lead them to exclusion or inclusion. The word siren stems from the Greek σειρά (seirá: rope, cord) and εἴρω (eírō: to tie, join, fasten), resulting in the meaning of the one who binds or entangles. Therefore, the siren will knot deceptive nets of blood-red ropes on the Mediterranean seashore, ultimately leaving them behind. Whether they stay there to protect or imprison, for salvation or damnation remains unclear. Vittorio Venturoli writes this performative piece brings one to reflect on the dual relationship of migrants with the Mediterranean. Vehicle of migrations, the sea is numb and neutral in its endless role of levelling, smoothening edges, softening, tie after tie, even the sharpest will. Even the loudest storms are muted with time into a still, quiet fairness. It never alters the motion of its impartial ruling. And so, as guardians, instruments of its blind justice, the sirens weave the net of its will, enveloping wanderers, conquerors and fugitives. The performer embodies the siren—the tool of its choice, the voice of the waves, an ambiguous
• I’M NOT YOUR BABE 1, PART 1

  BY Franko B

  In a provocative and stark portrait of the existential self, Franko B uses his own drawn blood as a symbol of carnal reality and suggests the natural destitution of the body as a fundamental of existence. Standing before us a mute body-object, achromatic and cadaverous, his performance is an act of cleansing, stripping the flesh of identity.