Cristina Mejías

This project reflects on how knowledge is produced, how it occupies a body and is transferred by means of the intersubjectivity that occurs in any exchange. It observes the existence of two phenomena that occur in nature, each on the obverse or reverse side of our horizon.

On the one hand, ever since humpback whales have inhabited the seas and oceans, a song heard in the sea has circulated around the Earth. When the pod gathers to sing together, subtle changes are introduced and added to their hymn. All the members of the community learn the latest version, even though it is quick to change. In this way, the oral nature of their singing causes it to continually mutate. By circulating their story in this way, they change it all the time.

What is more, the world’s whales seem to share acoustic information, as if they were all singing fragments of the same song. One pod ends the song where another begins, creating a melody that circles the Earth. Like troubadours of the ocean depths, they recite stories that are not genetically encoded - they collect and learn them throughout their lives. In what one might describe as an intergenerational pact, they all learn the songs and their changes, so that each one continually evolves and is transmitted to distant populations.

On the other hand, a phenomenon similar to that of the ocean takes place in its mirror space, the airspace, where the flapping of the wings of a host of bodies moving in unison produces murmurations. These are the aerial choreographies performed by starlings who, in perfect collective synchrony and with no leader to direct them (unlike other birds such as ducks or geese), paint the sky with a multitude of shapes amid a commotion that, strangely enough, strongly resembles the sound of waves crashing in the sea. In these encounters, each individual interacts with the six companions located closest to it in space. In this way, any interaction by one animal is perceived by and transmitted to its six neighbours, who in turn let another cluster of seven know, and so, successively, the murmur crosses bodies and, transformed, reaches each member of the community.

This project observes these two phenomena as alternative ways of telling our story, in which the construction of the narrative accepts a whole series of slips, stutters and fragilities as valid witnesses of their time. The aim is to construct a sculptural installation made up of different elements in suspension, where the rotation of one means the pulsation of another and the weight of one body, as in a magnetic compass, creates a tension that sustains another body.

BIO

The work of Cristina Mejías (Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1986) questions the strict and traditional methods of constructing history through linear narrative. Her work derives from proximity narratives, those that are transmitted orally and are imbued with the voice of the speaker who tells them and the listener who hears them. It contains all possible formulations, the landmark blends with myths and legends and fictions appear as options that eschew a hegemonic narrative.

A visual artist with a degree in Fine Arts from the UEM, part of her artistic training and practice took place at NCAD (Dublin), Berlin and UCM (Madrid). She has recently held solo exhibitions in such places as Alarcón Criado (Seville, 2022), Rodríguez (Poznan, Poland), Párraga Centre (Murcia), Teatro LaCapilla, together with Víctor Colmenero (CDMX, Mx), the Jaén Museum, Blueproject Foundation (Barcelona), the Cádiz Museum, the Goma (Madrid) or MACZUL (Maracaibo, VZ) and collectively in spaces such as Casa de Iberoamérica (Cádiz), Sala de Arte Joven (Madrid), Premip Foundation Caja Extremadura Las Claras Cultural Centre (Plasencia), Rafael Botí Foundation (Cordoba), Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid), Palacio Almirante (Granada), Teatro Central (Seville), Impronta (Guadalajara, MX), ProyectoH (CDMX, Mx), Inéditos y Generación2020 at La Casa Encendida (Madrid), SCAN Projects (London, UK), CentroCentro (Madrid), C3A (Cordoba), Premi Ciutat de Palma (Baleares), Mendoza Foundation (Caracas, VZ), Artothèque (Bordeaux, FR), TEA (Tenerife), Spanish Cultural Centre / AECID (Rosario, Argentina/ Concepción, Chile/Lima, Peru), XXVII Circuitos de Artes Plásticas (Madrid) or CAAC (Seville) among others.

She has recently received a number of awards and grants, including the Obra Abierta 2022 International Prize, ARCO 2022 Foundation Prize, ARCO Community of Madrid 2022 Prize, Generation 2020, Blueproject Foundation, VEGAP XXIII, Community of Madrid-Estampa2019. She has recently been in residence at Pico do Refúgio (S.Miguel Island, Azores, PT), Festival Volcánica with Víctor Colmenero (Guadalajara, MX), Blueproject Foundation (Barcelona), Hangar Lisboa (Lisbon, PT), C3A (Cordoba) and Tabakalera (Donostia).

She is a recipient of the Mobility Residency for Visual Artists of Matadero Madrid’s Centre for Artists in Residence in collaboration with ArtWorks, Porto.