The Water, Luisa, and Coufal, 2020

HD Video and Quadraphonic or Stereo Audio

8’40”

June 26 – July 16, 2020

Sala Abierta*, an intangible space that, in its first phase, will showcase the work of artists who live and work in Guadalajara.

This video explores the neglect of spaces, murals, and people around two iconic buildings of modern Tapatío architecture—the Experimental Theater and the Jalisco Handicrafts Promotion Center—through the perspective of Luisa, a transgender woman with an auditory functional difference, artist, and street dweller. She draws the murals Alegory of the Theater of Mexico by Gabriel Flores (1960), Handicraft Map of Jalisco by José María Servín (1964-65), and The Death of Handicrafts by Roberto Montenegro (1964-65). The sound reveals the underground springs that once flowed visibly in the area and now lie buried.

Concept and Methodology

This project focuses on constructing memory through direct experiences of the mentioned places, using representations that reflect the past—such as murals, architecture, and the environment—and translating them into contemporary reality through the sound of water and Luisa’s act of drawing.

The video highlights the diffuse and transitory presences within the space and proposes an artistic methodology of recording. That is, the artist’s role as the creator of a testimony of everyday life, with an insistence on visually, collaboratively, and symbolically writing histories from local voices. Before writing the script or defining the medium, Florencia Guillén worked with La Otra Calle, a collective of artists and street dwellers from the Agua Azul Park area in Guadalajara, of which Luisa is a member.

Direction

Florencia Guillén

Cinematography

Andrés Villa Aldaco

Artist

Luisa

Sound Design and Editing Design

Yair López

Quadraphonic Mixing

Homero González

Editing

Ana Quiñones

Sound Recording

Renee Abaroa Águila

Production

Adriana Guillén

Assistant Cinematographer

Joaquín García Aguilar

Affiliation

La Otra Calle, collective of artists and street dwellers

Florencia Guillén (1978)

Florencia Guillén studied drawing and painting at the Istituto Spinelli per l’Arte e il Restauro in Florence, Italy, and later graduated in Art History and Visual Arts from Goldsmiths College, London, UK. She earned a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from The Slade School of Fine Art in London, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

She has had solo exhibitions at the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America in the UK, Valenzuela y Klenner in Colombia, Arsenal in Poland, and MET Manila. Her work has been included in collective exhibitions in Mexico at Museo Carrillo Gil, Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Ex Convento del Carmen, Museo del Periodismo, Casa del Lago, Centro Cultural Border, Centro de la Imagen, Museo Amparo de Puebla, Museo de Arte de Sonora, Centro Estatal de las Artes Tijuana, Arena México, and Galería Arredondo-Arozarena.

Her videos have participated in video art festivals such as Made in Video in Denmark and Betting on Shorts at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. She has been an artist-in-residence at various institutions, including Red Mansion Foundation in China, Gasworks in the UK–Colombia, ESCALA in the UK, Guapamacátaro, and the Centro de Arte de San Agustín in Mexico. She developed a research project along the Trans-Siberian route as part of the Duveen Travel Scholarship awarded by University College London. She was also an artist-in-residence in Colombia for a second time, supported by FONCA. She received the Arte Actual Fundación Bancomer and Museo Carrillo Gil grant and won the LARA award for a residency in the Philippines, later exhibiting at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo in Quito, Ecuador. More recently, she was a PECDA Jalisco fellow in 2016.

Throughout her career, she has taught at several universities, including ITESO, TEC de Monterrey, and ESARQ, and has led various workshops for museums and independent spaces in Mexico.

Her work focuses on undertaking journeys in search of stories that emerge from the seemingly insignificant and invisible, which reflect historically significant events. She works in various media, including video, sound, drawing, text, and textiles, with visual content that oscillates between documentary recording and poetic expression.