Galindo’s works, as part of a broader curatorial position, help us see more than just the artsy aspect of Kassel’s economy and political presence in the world. Confronting the exhausted body of the artist running from the shadow of the tank, we are pushed to see the leopard lying in the room – or, more precisely, location 51°20’11.1″N 9°29’06.0″E of an online map of Kassel. Yet in seeking to do more than simply break the veil that prevents critical acknowledgment of the facts of war within the art world, both Galindo’s works go beyond the art-washing of social conflicts.
Specifically, Galindo’s concerns with the body in relation to the weapons industry allows her provocation to go beyond of the allegorical scope of macro-social critiques. Her performative intervention invites us to take into a serious consideration crucial ethical questions: Where are you situated within the global state of siege? How do you position yourself in relation to the social politics of death that destroy the right to live in peace across the world? And when you’re in a position to pull the trigger, how do you not do it?
Jota Mombaça is a non-binary bicha, born and raised in the northeast of Brazil, who writes, performs and academically studies on the relations between monstruosity and humanity, kuir studies, de-colonial turns, political intersectionality, anti-colonial justice, redistribution of violence, visionary fictions, the end of the world and tensions among ethics, aesthetics, art and politics in the knowledge productions of the global south-of-the-south. Current works are the collaboration with Oficina de Imaginação Política (São Paulo) and the artistic residency along with Capacete’s 2017 at Documenta (Athens/Kassel).