Against the Gaze is a durational live installation where the body becomes a figure, a myth, a suggestion.
Surrounded by copies of some of the most emblematic sculptural works ever created, two bodies reclaim gestures, both anonymous and iconographic, from our sensitive material and symbolic heritage. “We are what we look at” said Plotinus, but what do we look at and why? Who sculpts our sight?
Against the Gaze is a site-specific installation originally created for the Bilbao Museum of Reproductions, adaptable to any museum or gallery that houses sculptural or pictorial works, ideally from the Renaissance Classicism or the Baroque.
During the museum’s opening hours, two performers take turns exhibiting themselves as another piece in the collection, on a pedestal, in a continuous and endless rotation, while the public visits the site accompanied by the narration they listen to through an audio guide, which invites them to reflect on art, culture, gender, and their own bodies.
Against the Gaze is a piece by iara Solano Arana
Produced by Sleepwalk Collective
ORIGINAL IDEA, TEXT, AND VOICE: iara Solano Arana
PERFORMANCE: iara Solano Arana and Rebeca Matellán
ORIGINAL MUSIC AND ADVISOR: Sammy Metcalfe
AUDIO LENGTH: 20 minutes
LANGUAGES AVAILABLE: Spanish, English, and Basque
