Ja, willkommen hier im OK zu unserem Artist in Residency Talk. Herzlich willkommen, liebe Gäste. Wir sind alle hier, um auch das Projekt von der Elisa Andersner ein wenig zu verfolgen. Und our talk will take place in English and that's why I also would like to switch. And I would like to introduce our guests and maybe give some background information on the project. Elisa Andersner, an artist born in 1983 in Leoben, so in Syria, is a fine artist, lives in Linz and she studied experimentelle visuelle gestaltung at the University of Art Linz. She's working in the fields of self-timer photography video and performance quite successful and One thing she's especially interested are her intercultural exchange projects, which she's organizing since 2010 October 2022 she was in Mexico on invitation of the Oberösterreichische Landeskultur GmbH within the frame of our artist in residency program OÖER and there she wanted to do research on the issue of femicides and gender roles and she worked in the medium of interviews and had a lot of exchange there and met many people. Like one of those photos we have in the back as announcement for this artist talk, which is kind of a typical art piece of Elisa because she often shows up in her own photography as part of her performance work to bring in the artist herself. Her reflective exchange with performative photography and her feministic approach approach will be something she wanted wants to extend in her art project here for the for us for here to Linz. She's an artist who worked quite a long time in the US and finally went back to Oaxaca, and that's where you met. And this is kind of the first connection we have this evening. She's also artist in residency and now a guest here in Linz and together with Oscar Cueto and Elisa we want to talk about your experiences, about this intercultural exchange, and have, I think, quite some impressions this evening. So the first what we would like to do is to give some single presentations about your body of work. So we will start with Elisa, continue with Polina. start with Elisa continue with Polina and Polina is born in Moscow and she lives currently now in Oaxaca but you studied fine arts and art and design and education at the Pratt Institute New York that's where you lived also as an interdisciplinary artist and you work with performance drawing, artist publications, puppets and performative objects. Oscar was born in Mexico City and currently lives in Vienna and he studied trans arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and you work with a variety of techniques from drawing to performative installations and you founded a museum kind of a nomadic museum 2017 the MUME Museo Mexicano and we have also a book I would like to pass through when Oscar is talking. Yeah, and there will be a project together. So we are quite happy about this very intensive exchange and to really, so one of the aims of this artist in residency program is not to send artists to existing places, but to find a place where you can really continue to work on your body of work. And interestingly, it was quite clear with Mexico, it could be an interesting place to go, especially to do some research on a region which is dedicated to matriarchy, but it came out different. So, I would like to hand over to Elisa Andesner to give her presentation about her body of work. Elisa Andesner Yes, three years ago, Alfred Weidinger, the director of the museum, invited me and said, do you want to make a residency? Where do you want to go? And I said, yes, of course I want to go. I want to go to Mexico. And I knew I want to go to Mexico because shortly before I made a research that in Mexico there is a small town, it's called Juchitan, and there is a matriarchy there. And I want to see the matriarchy. I would say two years before, when I was in Teheran for a residency, I discovered that I want to work with feminist topics and started to reflect on gender roles, on women's rights. And somehow also started to research about matriarchy. And I found out there is a city where there is a matriarchy. I read books. There is a German writer. She's called Veronika Penhold-Thompson. And she wrote a book. It's called Hutschitan The City of Women and I said I have to go there I have to see the matriarchy, I want to I have such a wish to see another society and maybe they can I can see some ideas which I can bring to Europe or to Austria or to empower myself and imagine already the matriarchy, how it looks, and it will welcome me, and I will meet a lot of women there. And I also saw a documentation on Arte. Yes, and it was clear for me, I go to Mexico to see the matriarchy. And I went there. So, thanks of you to finance this and to see this. And I went there, and arrived in Huchitan, to finance this and to see this. And I went there and arrived in Huchitan already on my way. So an artist called Angel, he lives in Oaxaca too. He picked me up from the airport and I asked him, is there a matriarchy in Huchitan? And he said, I never heard about that. And already, strange, strange. Then I arrived there and after one or two days I walked around looking for the matriarchy. And already only when I was walking I had the feeling people are looking strange at me. After some time I found out it's basically too dangerous to walk around in this city. I saw shops, all the shops were with bars, so forget that. I thought, oh strange, everything is closed, but then I found out there are always these bars, because it's too dangerous to open the shops. And I slowly understood that I'm in a completely dangerous environment and after two or three days I really felt that I don't have a chance there it's so I can't orient myself it's so different than here in in Austria and I asked a friend Angel do you know some guides that I can that can help me to find, to experience, see some places here in Huchitan? And I found one, Fernando. And he went around with me. He showed me places. He showed me the market. So the market is run by women. That's true. And I think this picture of all the women at the market is run by women, that's true. And I think this picture of all the women at the market maybe created this kind of misunderstanding that there is a matriarchy. I'll just show you these pictures. So, and then after two or three days, I felt that I'm so dependent on Fernando. Fernando went with me five days. He didn't speak English. I don't speak Spanish. But we invented a language. And we loved each other. We had so interesting talks about society and about everything. So we really managed to communicate. But nevertheless, I was really dependent on him. He picked me up in the morning, brought me to places, and brought me home in the evening. And I knew it was absolutely important that I'm at home at the hotel at seven before it gets dark, because to be outside alone, it's too dangerous. And I felt I cannot do anything without Fernando. So I went to Oaxaca. It's a bigger town, to close that's what you say it's close it's five hours by bus I felt that Hutschitan was not the right place for me because I could not move alone so I went to I went to Oaxaca I posted a posting on Facebook I'm in Oaxaca now and suddenly Liliana called me Liliana and I'm so happy that you're here, Peter. Because Peter Kuttern and his wife, they welcomed, they hosted Liliana 25 years ago in Linz. She was a schoolgirl and lived in Linz for one year. And somehow Peter told her to call me. She called me. Elisa, Peter told me I should call you. I pick you up in half an hour. And she picked me up and she grew up in Hutschitan. And she was the first person I could really ask, Liliana, is there a matriarchy in Hutschitan? And she said, no, there is no matriarchy. And she described how she grew up and I understood that it's really a patriarchal society, more patriarchal, I had the feeling, than I experienced in Iran. So to have a bigger brother, to be really pressed into a traditional role and so on. And then I just started to understand that somehow these documentaries and these books are somehow an exported product that is sold here in Europe because we wish so much to have another society somewhere else. And then I understood, okay, what you have to do do now you have to start to ask the people who live here how it really is and how is their life realities and then I went to in Oaxaca I suddenly found a completely different topic it's the topic of femicide everywhere on the street I saw graffitis. I went into demonstrations. What else? I saw murals with the topic of women and women fighting against patriarchal violence. What else pictures do I have? Yeah. And yes, then I started to work with the topic of femicide, but not only femicide in Mexico, also femicide in Austria. And it pointed me, it made me sensitive about looking to Austria, looking to my own country, looking to a topic which is also extremely present in Austria, but I didn't really see it before. And I started to do interviews, seven interviews with people in Austria, but I didn't really see it before. And I started to do interviews, seven interviews with people in Mexico, with women, and seven interviews when I came back in Austria. I'm not sure what pictures will come now. Ah, yeah, that's another artwork I did there in Oaxaca. Yeah, just I started with this topic to research there, to talk with people, to read statistics and so on. That's another one. So, no morimos, we don't die. I like that slogan very much, I saw it in the demonstrations. Yeah, okay. I like that slogan very much I saw it in the demonstrations yeah okay and this is Polina she's sitting next to me now I met her so I had already contact before I came to Mexico so we said yes we could meet and then we met for a coffee and then she was also we had so many interesting talks about different topics also about gender and gender roles. And I also invited her to do an interview with me. And now I show you the other interview partners. So then when I managed to leave the idea of matriarchy, I started to really work. And I started to come in contact with Mexican women. There was also one man. This is an artist, a very young artist. But one man I also invited. He worked already with victims of violence, victims of female violence, victims of patriarchal violence. And he had also a very nice, interesting perspective. Ah, that's already all. Okay, sorry. Yeah, okay, these were my interview partners. And Liliana, you saw before. Yeah. Yes, and that's what I continued in Austria. I started to do interviews with people here who are somehow connected with femicide or feminism or patriarchy, matriarchy maybe. And I hope that there is a lot of work to do still, but I hope there will come out an interesting video installation. I want to put the Mexican perspective and the Austrian perspective in communication. So I wanted it somehow like these two sides communicate with each other. Elisa, you will continue to make this series of photos as you started with the traditional dresses of Mexico, but also you have one with Austrian dresses, so as always kind of a sister next to you. So this will be another work, right? So this I did with Liliana. She has the really traditional dress. We painted white white to have a reference to femicide, to death, but also look into the camera really a little bit. So yes, we want to fight against it. And then we have the aspect of sisterhood. I did nearly the same picture with an Austrian friend of mine, with traditional Austrian clothes. And now I also developed that I don't want to stick with the traditional clothes. I chose, how to say, several more other women I want to take a photo with, but also with other clothes, like working clothes. but this is for me the topic of solidarity between women yeah and I would like to make three in Austria and three in Mexico so that the frame is the same but it's with different clothes different situations different people yeah and one last question before we get to Paulina. Why is it necessary to go back now? I think it's necessary for me to go back again in March because I started some things, but it was really a little bit just scratching on the surface and I want to go on so I have the connection to Paulina now she came to Linz and we developed things again when we met here again there are so many things I'm still interested in and I think now that I'm in nearly one year one and a half years later I go there again and in the meantime I did these seven interviews in Austria. I have a completely new knowledge about femicides, about gender roles, about societal structures that I think then when I go there again, I will discover new things that I missed before. That's true so from the structure of a residency sometimes you get in and it was not so long you have been there just for one month and then you start to do really to get into your work and then it's necessary to go back so we are very happy to have this experience now with Elisa Andersner to do this for the first time, not only to support her to make the next step in her artistic development but to really go deeper. And we are very happy to welcome Polina Porras on the exchange of this project and I just had one meeting with the two of you and you kind of shared some ideas what to do. I'm very interested how on your presentation because it's it's you're kind of a person who was born in Russia, raised in Mexico, went to New York, traveling a lot, and now you're back in Oaxaca. Yes, now I'm here. I am here. Thank you. Thank you so much for the support and for the invitation. Yes, so I will share a little bit about my work, mainly the last exhibition I had right before coming here. I had an exhibition in Oaxaca. This is where I live now, and it's after 35 years living in the United States, I finally am back in Mexico. So for me, it's a way of re-encountering my own culture. I'm also a New Yorker by heart. So I will share this work. It's an interdisciplinary work, although most of my work in the last 15, 17 years comes from performance work, participatory work. In this case, this exhibition was called Acciones para la Nostalgia, Actions for Nostalgia. So here you see I did a performance a site specific performance in a gallery in Oaxaca and a whole body of work mostly drawings and collage around the idea of how to make a crossover between performance art and the visual arts. So here, actually the full title of the exhibition is Acciones para la Nostalgia Pre y Post Performance. performance, so meaning actions for nostalgia, visual arts before and after a performance. So some of the works were inspired by performances I did in the past, so it's like a response or an answer after a performance. So for instance, this is a performance I did in Oaxaca in 2014 called Viva La Vida, where I impersonate a quinceañera. Anyone has heard what is a quinceañera? Quinceañera is like a sweet 15 girl who becomes 15 years old, and it's a very special celebration in Latin American cultures because that means she's presented to society, meaning she's ready to get married. So I did this work in front of a church, a big Catholic church, where during an hour I create a whole set of rituals all mixed up together to create another world so I started like this dressed as a quinceanera and I ended up like this, dressed as a quinceanera, and I ended up like this. I work with female iconography. In this case, I was a quinceanera, and then I became the woman in gold, this invented character. I could talk about this performance for a long time because a lot of things happened. It was a sequence of ritual after ritual with lots of iconography, icons of women and rituals and objects and a mix of pre-Hispanic rituals, Catholic rituals, and invented rituals. But this is how I ended. And it was a collaboration, actually, with a group of children. You see some of the children here, that they were also part of this performance. see some of the children here, that they were also part of this performance. So here, it's a response to this performance where I drew the dress. The dress was exhibited after the performance in a museum. And here, I recreated it in a drawing form. And then here you see these paintings that tell an imaginary story of what happened to the dress. The dress actually, I was saving it for later to be shown in museums, but it actually got destroyed by a flood, And I just made up a story. I made up a story imagining that this dress was floating through the streets of Oaxaca. So this is another work, performance in 2008 in New York called What Left and Yet Remains. And this was a major source of inspiration for the performance that I recently did. Because here I'm talking about things, people, events in my life that were part of my life and disappeared but somehow have remained in my soul, my heart. And then based on that performance, I created this collage. This collage, as you can see, the image of me blindfolded and so in a dress of memories or nostalgias. Here again I mix two things, one a performance and another a painting. During this exhibition I put both next to each other and I wanted to show this interdisciplinary way of working where I have a photograph of a performance called Santa Agua or Saint Water where I dressed as the Virgin of Guadalupe, one of the main saints in Mexico and Latin America. And of course, I go through a transformation of the saint into a more indigenous or pre-Hispanic goddess of fertility. And as you can see, the painting is inspired by this image of a woman with corn on her belly, but in a fictional, imaginary world. And this is the same performance of Santa Agua. So here I start thinking about the performance that I'm about to do. So in preparation, I start making these series of drawings and collages, thinking I want to make a giant dress, and I want to talk about my biggest nostalgia, which is my mom. So I start creating images talk about my biggest nostalgia, which is my mom. So I start creating images, thinking about this upcoming performance. Where I'm thinking, how am I gonna build this dress? What's gonna be, how is this gonna be held? What's gonna be underneath. And all these drawings were exhibited. This is another collage thinking how the whole dress is going to live in the gallery. And here are images of the actual performance where I come, as you see, blindfolded. And I start giving the audience flowers. They're bugambillas. They're these really beautiful flowers, like red, dark red, that remind me of my mom. And actually, I started singing in Russian. So my mom was Russian. So there's this kind of intercultural displacement. I'm in Mexico, the audience is Mexican, and I started singing in Russian. singing in Russian. And I start, often I invite participation or I invite, I bring the audience into into the action. And here I ask people, what is your nostalgia? And as you can see here, this is the setup of the dress. And this tipi-like structure becomes a place where I'm kind of like a shaman or a person who people can come and tell me their nostalgias. And it's quite a very interesting experiment. When you're blindfolded, people tell you a lot of things, very private and personal things. And then the final part of this performance is I go up the ladder and it's a type of dance and with sounds of the ocean and a song in Russian that reminds me of my mom. Here I eat the flowers or chew the flowers. And this is another collage. As you can see, maybe you see the relationships of the actual performance in this collage as a way of planning a performance. So you see that the symbols of the bugambillas, the dress, there's a picture of my mom here on the bottom right. So just envisioning, envisioning this work. And here's me working in my studio. And this image being from Oaxaca. Just to bring back the subject of how we met in Oaxaca. Thank you. Thank you, Paulina. You told us that you work also a lot with this tradition of rituals or marching and also with puppets. Yes. So this is maybe something interesting too. maybe something interesting too yes I have created a few puppets mainly for as commissions because these puppets have been used for parades for parades so I did a commission for a Latino museum in New York, El Museo del Barrio three giant puppets. They're like three and a half meters tall. Taking the, so they're like the three kings from the Bible. But in this case, I took out the religious symbology and I replaced it with indigenous mythology and cosmology so I did this and I did other puppets for music events or parades yeah because there is this tradition right? of these parades and we're in culture but it's also a form you use which can be used in an artistic way as well yes and they're an important part of a celebration there are so many celebrations in Mexico where these giant puppets are part of it of course music masks and they're like so rich in symbology because when we first met you told me both of you we miss some magic right but maybe we can continue on this. And I would like to invite Oskar, who is now based in Austria for 10 years, but you also started as an artist in residency in Salzburg. Exactly. And then you came to Linz, and you have been an artist in residence at the Salzamt too. Exactly. And then you settled here. So please show us your presentation. It's difficult to articulate in so few minutes what I want to say, but I will try. I suppose that I should say that since the beginning of my career, I felt uncomfortable with some old notions, and also with the art world itself. So I was artist. I was already showing things, but also with this not very happy about some conceptions. But also about how the art history is told and so on. So I started to research, and I think my two big moments were the cinema. I found cinema that gives me structure to tell stories. And the other was that I found also philosophy. Of course, at the beginning was like the Western philosophy. But then I discovered that there are a lot of hidden thinkers. So I discovered, for example, the cultural studies from England, and they gave me something it blowed my mind that they said that history is narrative. So that means that history is a fairy tale somehow. It's like another kind of story that is told. And I was learned to repeat the idea that history is that happened. So if history is a fairy tale, a story, we can also modify the history and the history of writing. And it depends of who writes the history is going to be the history, the written history. So I also found after the cultural studies, I found the coloniality, which is a movement that belongs to this kind of all movements that come from the periphery, that comes from India as studies of subalternity or post-colonial studies in Africa. And the coloniality to resume, it is the idea that everything that we know is like a fiction and it was put there to keep us dominated this is the idea and to break to try to break this this dynamic it is to learn how was made this this, and then to try to provoke new narratives. So you learn something, then your job is to unlearn the things. So this project, for example, was an invitation in a museum that is a private museum in Mexico, which has one of the biggest collections of art in Latin America. It's called Museo Jumex. And it's a very gentrified zone that is called La Granada. La Granada used to be a poor neighborhood. And then the investors came and as all the processes of gentrification brought also the investors afterwards the cultural class with the promise of bringing knowledge. And then they brought industry offices and so on. And now the neighborhood is totally different. It's like New York, like every city in the world. So the museum invited me and they invited me because of one reason. And I knew they knew how was my work. And I said, okay, I'm going to do something, but I am going to do something that is going to happen outside and not inside of the museum, mainly. So I asked for stories to the neighborhoods, the original neighborhoods about the neighborhood, and I painted the stories in small paintings, all paintings that are behind this wall. I just have an image of the project. And then we presented the paintings on the square in front of the museum and not in the museum museum and I invited a rapper to sing the stories like a history with many layers and that was one project another project is this coffee in public space I was interested in graffiti of the revolution but also on how orient is idealized by western and there's this very famous book that is called Orientalism and there are also a movement of painters, the painters of Orientalism. And there's a very famous also painter, an Austrian one that is called Deutsch. I forgot the first name of Deutsch. But he is a Deutsch. And he idealized the idea of Orient like doesn't exist. the idea of Orient doesn't exist. It is more like a classic Western painting just with people of color. But even though the people of color is again serving the white people, giving coffee to the visitor of the coffee shop and so on. And I was interested how the people in Cairo see this kind of vision of the Western, but also about the reality of the coffee shops. And I went to Cairo to find the artists, the original artists of the revolution, the spring revolution in Cairo. And most of them are away. They have to flee from Cairo. They are living abroad. But I found some of them that are very important. And I invited them to give me their shablone. I don't know what is the name in English stencils and to use their work in a public coffee shop that could be like a similar version of a painting of this painter Deutsch, but in a version where the mosaics are graffitis and we organized there talks about racism in Vienna, the history of racism in Vienna, but also about gender, emancipation, revolution, and so on. And we gave always coffee for free and so on. And the coffee shop was there in a parking lot two years. Active with different programs. And I do also performances. This one is because Cinemize another big club. I did this performance in Stuttgart. I was invited to participate in a festival. And what I did this performance in Stuttgart. I was invited to participate in a festival. And what I did was a performance telling somehow an autobiographical story, the story of my life, a little bit fiction, a little bit reality, with 10 different stations. Every station was a scenification of a scene, a famous scene of a movie In this case was Baryshnikov dancing in the movie White Nights and yeah and I was using all the time different masks, so I had a case with a lot of costumes and masks and every time was using, so it was telling the story of Berezhnikov, and Berezhnikov used to look like this. The people were like, really? I can remember that Berezhnikov looked like that. So about the memory, how the memory can fake the reality, and again about history writing. And one of the perhaps more known projects that I have in Vienna is MUME. And it's a project that I started in Salzburg in a place called Stuhlfelden. And it's about, again, breaking old notions. I was always interested in how is conceived a museum, what is a museum, what are the roles of the museum, what is the hierarchy of the museum. And in this case I am trying to put everything apart, to break everything apart and to play with the roles. It's a nomadic museum. It takes place everywhere. This time I was in a cave, in a hunting cave, and invited 15 different artists, Mexicans, because it was like a really precarious situation. They sent me documentation, but also we showed the video. They are somehow very known artists. And I always tell a different story following this idea of this pursuit of the humanity of trying to tell big things and to create myths. So the museum is created with this, based on these myths. In this case, it was like some kind of twisted version of Robinson Crusoe coming to an island and so on. And that was in my studio. And invited a creator that is called Andrea Torreblanca and she conceived a project about Adolf Loz connected with the other different elements ending with a Mexican artist but passing by a story of Freud and so on. And that was about boys and the boys, the people that don't have a voice. And it was because of the topic shown in Karlsmarzhof, which is like, you know, the story is like the biggest complex in Vienna of this red social state. That one was about the Moctezuma crown, and we did it not in front of the Bell Museum, but in the ring, because it is not allowed to do things in front of Bell Museum, because it belongs not allowed to do things in front of Bell Museum because it belongs to Parliament. And I invited a collective that is called Alpine Gothic, and they made a connection of Tyrol with Moctezuma's crown. In this case, we did beer, corn beer, and we converted the gallery that is a place that is used by the class of Hans Schabus we did this movement in collaboration with the Sculpture Institute of Hans Schabus and we invited the students to follow the process to do the beer but also discussing anarchy. So the first batch of the beer was called Prudon which is like the father of anarchism and the project was called Mano Vuelta. Mano Vuelta is a common style of life of the people of the north of Mexico, that is, I help you and you help me back. And another moment was to celebrate the tree, the tree that is behind the monument of Carl Luega in Vienna. It was a three-day festival where we give workshops about cyber resistance, gender equality, and so on, and music, and also we printed things. And the last one was MUME Ausländer. I invited a collective that is called Ausländer, and they thematized the idea of being a migrant here in Austria. And we did a freak show in a cinema. And we offered at the beginning visas, free visas. And we invited everybody to come as a freak. And that is one of the projects that is following is ongoing an ongoing project yeah thank you very much for for your presentation which is kind of a mix of your own work and for you as an artist curator so how does this work this connection, artist, curator artist I think it's like the experience of Elisa that I don't see a difference I just see that it's an art practice it is again like if I repeat the idea that I am a curator or an artist I am following the same structure of putting me in a role that is like give me static yeah you're taking a role I think you have the three of you you have something in in common we talked about this it's not only your collaborative praxis which that you share your artistic experience with others but it's a lot also about sisterhood or also solidarity. So that's also quite a political approach in the art of yours. Yeah, I have to say sometimes I think oh my god, why did I do it again? Why did I have this idea again? Again, two artists from Mexico to invite here, it's so much work. I said already, I did do it. Two months ago, I found out why I do it. And from that moment on, it doesn't get on my nerves anymore. I get sometimes on my own nerves, because I think, why don't you spend all your energy on your own art? But I found out first of all I need to exchange. Second is we are so privileged in Austria. There is still money left for art projects and in other countries not. And I feel it's an obligation to share it with other artists. For me it's an obligation, even if it's a lot of work. But I also have a lot of benefit from it and I feel it's an obligation to include others. One artist in Oaxaca, I asked him, are there some art fundings? And he said, yeah, when we want to have funding, first we block the street for a week, then we block the entrance to the cultural office, and then maybe it can be that they give us the money for the bus tickets. And there is not a form. I don't know if this was exaggerated of him, if it's maybe different, but he said there is not a form you can fill. So like here, you make an application yeah and yeah I feel for me it's a need to do it well yes I mean just to be here for I've been here for a month, and it's the first part of a two-part or three-part, a part of many parts. And it's been such an enriching experience having conversations. And I think what I find it really amazing is that we're not only thinking about our own because all of us we bring people into into our art and we want a lot of people to experience it in different ways and I think this is really what brings us together, brings us together that we bring people to us, we invite people or we take the art somewhere. So I think this is really not only very nice and beautiful and nice, but it's also very enriching for many people, I think. Yes, like if we think about the audiences who have been part of our projects, I feel that they get a lot from it too. Not only us, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I don't know, perhaps again it's like first, I don't think that someone is owner of the magic and the other of the science or or you can find there solidarity, something that you are missing here. It is like solidarity was like, keep quiet and silenced in this time of capitalist, brutal capitalism and neoliberalism and so on. And I'm sure that the science and history of solidarity keeps theirs here so much as in Mexico. And it's just to try to discover again another kind of human relations. And one of them is like to try again, like to work together, to be polite and nice with the other. Yeah, simply like that and yeah I think is this perhaps is not going to be the solution but if we have to try it otherwise we are I mean it's your practice in a way I would like to ask the two of you how you met. And Lisa prepared some more images therefore. So I knew already I will go to Oaxaca. So I asked around in the network, in the performance network I was part of. Do you know any people from Mexico? And one of my former performance, because I did performance for seven years, only performance, and I was connected with a lot of performance artists in Belgium, in Germany, and they said, yes, yes. So one of them, Beatrice, said, yes, I know one. Her name is Esmeralda. I contacted Esmeralda. Esmeralda said, yes, I live in Mexico City, but I know another one in Oaxaca, and that was Polina. And I just wrote you an email, can we meet? And you said, yes. And then we met. And there was sympathy and interest, and we met several times in Oaxaca. This is Oaxaca. She invited me to her artist community, I interviewed you and somehow we started to work together. Afterwards I came back and Polina helped me to translate the Spanish interviews and that somehow started that we sent each other voice messages every three or four days. And suddenly you said, maybe you come to Europe in summer. Maybe you visit me for two or three days in Linz. And I said, Ma, maybe we can make a residency out of it. I asked you if this was possible. And so it went on and on. This is my version. What is your version? Yes, it was similar. Of course, I was a little bit skeptical at first. And not skeptical in a bad way, but because a lot of people come to Oaxaca. A lot of people come looking for magic. And looking for, yeah, something like this. And so I met, yeah, I said, of course, yeah, I love to meet new people and I'm interested in what they're doing. What are you looking, Elisa, for matriarchy? Okay, okay, good luck, okay. but yeah we we definitely um um found uh like a kind of sister connection or something like this um and yes um this is it i mean talking a little bit about the support it is it is yes the support that is in in Mexico is it's not doesn't exist that much it does exist of course but it's it's just very little support for many artists and yeah do you want to talk about these images well yeah these are this is what you see in the streets. Life in Mexico, because the weather is always nice and sunny, much of it happens on the streets. Actually, homes and businesses, the doors are always open. There are no doors that you have to open. You just walk in. So you see these colorful walls. You can find out a lot of the sentiment of the people on what you see on the walls. Because what you see on the walls changes very quickly from murals that stay a little bit longer but also posters of all kinds of events graffiti, the graffiti is very alive so you can see what is the energy or the sentiment of the people because it changes quite often so yeah and this is what you would see very normally around the end of October as preparation for Day of the Dead. And also, I must say that a place like Oaxaca, because of the high influx of tourism, foreigners who come looking for a specific image and Mexicans give them this image but it's only an image there are so many layers there are so many layers to any tradition so yeah this is a cemetery. And I think you went during Jojocotlan. And, yeah, cemeteries during Day of the Dead, which is November 1st and 2nd, are really a lively place. And this, I must say, it's not for, I mean, yes, tourists go there, of course, but it's people go there to visit their loved ones. Yes. And also I wanted to mention about this church. Yeah, this is Santo Domingo, and this is where I did the performance that I showed you in my presentation of the quinceañera, so right there in front of that church. Yeah, thank you very much for some more impressions of these very lively surroundings. And Oscar, how did the connection to you come? Do you want to tell the story? Yes. Just suddenly Elisa called me once because of a recommendation of Holga, the director of Atelier Salsam. I was doing, as you said here, two times a residency. So, yeah, he receives again and again invitations from MUME. The pieces, sometimes we do pieces that are sent by post. So that was the connection. sent by post. So that was the connection and Elisa I suppose was looking for another voice to make this kind of discussion. Also kind of to share and to exchange the differences between also an artistic life in Mexico and how is it here? So like the difference, because this was something to, of course, when you travel, you always compare with what you know. But it is really astonishing that we have this kind of privileged situation. And I'm, for example, in contact with artists and residency institutions from the state to the cities and the federal governments, but also to artists around spaces and so on. And most of them have to do or pay the exchange twice because other countries usually can't afford to cover really an exchange where both of the artists who exchange get a fee, for example. Yes, we have also a Ministry of Culture. We have some residencies, but that's true. Austria has a lot of support. residencies but that's true austria has a lot of support and yes as you said we are very privileged to enjoy it and all these projects that i am showing are supported by being a federal state the book and so on perhaps it is very interesting that in Mexico we have a lot of collectors and I have not found collectors or a lot here good universities right you have a really good education yeah perhaps also because we have the richest people on the planet, also we have a lot of collectors and Austria is more like socially flat. It's more like a big middle class and yeah, everybody wants to see culture but nobody wants to to buy art but the museums and cultural institutions this is perhaps a difference that I see also at the public space is also a big difference so the public space in Mexico you just occupy the public space. And here it becomes a whole process of bureaucracy to occupy the public space. And you ask yourself, what is more public space than the other? When in Mexico you can do whatever that you want, but you have the criminality, and here you have security, but the public space is totally controlled then it's like, yeah I understand Yes, I so I came back from Mexico and I said I want to make a project in Linz and to invite Mexican artists Polina and Angel I knew already from Oaxaca, I want to invite them and then I thought, then I asked or talked to Holger if we can do a cooperation with Salzamt and he recommended me to contact Oskar. And I found it really good idea to have an Austrian Mexican also included. So to have the Austrian perspective, the Mexican but also the Austrian Mexican. And yeah, you are all invited in May next year we make a project in Salzamt. It's already fixed. 22nd of May will be a surprise. We have already some ideas. We are in the beginning of the process of defining and finding it, but it will be a very nice evening, and I hope you all come. Yeah, thank you very much. I think it was just an excellent word to finish our public conversation. And you are all invited to have some drinks with us in the back. Thank you very, very much for coming and for doing your wonderful presentations. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you very, very much for coming and for doing your wonderful presentations. Thank you for the invitation. Thank you. Thank you.