La Plaza del Chafleo

Film, 15’09’’, 2019

English: https://vimeo.com/309995802/ec8511a51b

This films is a proposal of an imaginary public square that would be named after the verb “to chaffle” which is, as well, an imaginary verb, a neologism. The idea is to propose as monument for this square a new verb that would take sense slowly depending the way people use the place ; for example if people come to kiss, “to chaffle” would mean “kissing”, if people come to make protest, “to chaffle” would mean “to protest”. The film then starts speculating about what could possible be “to chaffle”, and through this it generates different questions about how we use symbolically and physically the public space.

The film makes some jumps in time and space. It’s partly shoot in a studio in a sort or reconstituted garden where many actions with parts of bodies and built objects, sculptures and furniture take places. It also goes to a public square in Douala Cameroon and comments how the word “Cameroon” lost its sense in between different colonisation periods. There are also interventions made in public spaces in Buenos Aires, such as filling back with 15000 litters of water an empty public fountain named Poetry Fountain, left abandoned by the government wight years ago. In other point the film shows a documentation of a children protest that was organized first as a workshop.

The elasticity of the film makes of it a tool that is used here not only to generate questions and thoughts, but also interventions, collaboratives experiences with groups and workshops.