Performance beyond the Abysmal Line

Conversation between the art collective and activist La Lleca, from Mexico, the artist and activist Columba Zavala, and the resident research group Contraimaginarios Postpandémicos, about performance art as an emotional, affective and political tool in prison spaces.

La Lleca is a feminist, artistic and prison abolitionist collective, founded by artists and researchers Lorena Méndez and Fernando Fuentes. It has also been nurtured by a large number of members from different disciplines and areas of knowledge, who since 2004 have generated tools for artistic intervention through continuous performance, in contexts of closure, violence and struggle in different parts of the world. In their work, affection and desire acquire another dimension; space and time are disrupted, radical feminist pedagogy takes centre stage and allows them to build communities with those who have been separated from society. It is important to note that the collective is not only constituted by those who collaborate with their knowledge from different specialities, but also by all those who participate from the closed. In this way, everyone can unlearn, reflect and nourish themselves in defence of the possibility of sharing situated knowledge with each other and the power of mutual support.

By the research group Contraimaginaris Postpandèmics (Antoine Silvestre, Jesús Arpal Moya and Nancy Garín Guzmán)  

Participants:

Lorena Méndez, Mexican artist, scholar and activist, founder of La Lleca collective

Columba Zavala, Mexican activist artist, choreographer and body pedagogue

Coordinated by: Contraimaginaris Postpandèmics Research Group