English version
Abstract
Working for four years in the socialization of a grassroots archive of sexual culture in Mexico called El Insulto, I have found that centering touch in our practice helps to unravel valuable tools for collective bodily knowledge. But what does touch and its effect mean in a post-lock-down world? We used to take touch for granted; has it now acquired new significance? How does its re-accommodation into our new reality occur within artistic communities? Through reflecting upon El Insulto’s exhibition Please Touch. Embracing the Memories of Desire, I will share how pleasure, intimacy, and consent can help us, as cultural workers, create dynamics for surpassing the challenges that a post-touch world brought and how to recover it for the sake of embodied practices and intimate socialization.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, communities lost immeasurable collective networks that were grounded in physical gatherings. Now, cultural workers have the responsibility to help their re-construction, which is vital for political activism and social well-being. Working for four years in the socialization of a grassroots archive of sexual culture in Mexico called El Insulto, I have found that sexuality approaches to bodily knowledge could prove as a valuable tool in our practice to reintegrate physical bonding in social spaces. Through reflecting upon El Insulto’s curatorial and display strategies in our 2019 exhibition Please Touch. Embracing the memories of desire, I will share how touch, intimacy, and consent are not only fundamental axis for the socialization of sexualities, but how they can also help cultural workers to create dynamics to overcome the affective and physical distance that the lockdown has brought, for the sake of intimate communitarian relationships and collective action.
On touch / untouched: What sexuality socialization can teach us in a post-lockdown world
By Michelle Davó
In 2020, the co-founder of the Bolivian anarcho-feminist movement Mujeres Creando, María Galindo, wrote that “the Coronavirus is a weapon for destruction and prohibition (…) of the social protest, where we are told that the most dangerous thing is to gather and be together.” In times of contagion, Galindo considers how the closing of frontiers is absurd: to not go out to the streets; to stop seeing the ones we love. It is absurd, she argues, because it’s like breathing. And “not being able to breathe is what we are condemning with the coronavirus, not as much due to the disease itself, but [through] confinement, prohibition and obedience.” She proposed that instead of letting us believe that we could avoid contagion through distance, we should have had a collective, loving, and embodied preparation for what was yet to come. This way we wouldn’t have let the State instrumentalize the coronavirus for dissipating our affective fights in public spaces, nor our political encounters in the private ones. She said “let the coronavirus find us, ready for contagion.”
In 2022 social distancing continues. But as Galindo presaged, the impacts of Coronavirus were unavoidable. We have not only lost loved ones but, due to the obedience of confinement, we have also lost the opportunity to say goodbye. Thus, contagion has acquired contradictory meanings. Closeness, which we had taken for granted as a naturally conceded need for such a long time turned into a double-edged sword. How do we relate to that which we consider mandatory to avoid for survival and simultaneously necessary for living? Two years later, despite uncertainty being our only certitude with a somewhat vaccinated population, we feel more prepared to reclaim physical spaces for pleasurable and political collectivism. But beyond the mandatory precautions of Covid-19, what other challenges do we face in our efforts to recover closeness? Might the scars of confinement and anxiousness towards social gatherings have created a barrier for our individual and collective capacity for social encounters?
I ask these questions not only as a (sur)vivor of the pandemic, but as an arts and culture administrator. Since 2018, I have worked at Archivo El Insulto, a grassroots platform dedicated to the preservation and socialization of an archive of twentieth-century print materials related to sexuality that have circulated in Mexico. Between November and December of 2019 –three months before Mexico’s lockdown– we held our last exhibition as part of the archival exhibition program La Postal by Terremoto Magazine in Mexico City. Please Touch. Embracing the Memories of Desire applies central ideas around sexuality to question contemporary archival and curatorial dynamics.
Intimacy, consent, and fantasy are concepts in sexuality that guided the display of our records. In traditional archives, the bureaucratic rituals for consultation cause an emotional and physical distance between the consulting subject and consulted objects: going through all the paperwork, being observed by the security cameras, and sometimes not being able to touch the documents at all. At El Insulto, we wanted to rethink the hierarchical consultation dynamic by encouraging our attendants to freely handle our books, magazines, and photographs. We put several cushions and rugs on the floor so that the attendants could sit or lay down while r handling the exhibited objects; which mostly depict images of naked people laying down. We wanted to foster a horizontal and intimate relationship between people and objects based on a shared relaxed and vulnerable posture.
Nevertheless, designing a comfortable space is not enough for generating closeness. We created room guidelines where people and objects were equally prioritized. For comfort, people were allowed to lay down on the cushions, while objects remained on the tables. For their safety, people were allowed to leave the room, while objects were not. People had to handle objects carefully and the objects promised to not stain the readers’ hands. This game of applying rules both to people and objects answers to current discussions around consent in sexuality studies and activist movements. We wanted to foster awareness on the shared responsibility by giving autonomous agency to our records. These documents are manifestations of bodies and desires of people from the past, and as such, they deserve to be part of a respectful, affective, and horizontal dialogue with whoever encounters them.
The creation of this safe space with its own rules gave rise to a shared experience of the exhibition as a space both for and of fantasy. Surrounded by curtains, participants were required to reveal what was hidden on the other side in order to enter the exhibition space: a room within a room where getting involved with the records was a comfortable and intimate event. Between the pages of some of the books and magazines we placed prints from our photographic collection. In such a manner, attendants did not only dis-cover the curtains to enter, but also found hidden photographs.
Therefore, touch was a crucial experience for generating closeness with the records: sliding the curtain, laying down on the cushions, handling the records on the table, discovering new materials while looking at them. The guidelines we created allowed this contact to be respectful. By prioritizing the safety and comfort boundaries of all subjects and objects, we sought to foster consensual relationships.
Before the pandemic, thinking about the political and affective value of sexuality helped Archivo El Insulto create socialization strategies based on touch to foster affective relationships between people and records. Reflecting on the exhibition today, I see the power of touch as a path for reconstructing communitarian bonds and recovering lost intimacies beyond the spaces of sexuality.
The more I delve into the theory and practice of arts administration, the more I understand that the healing required today sums up to the touch of bodies: the social bodies, the individual bodies, the territory-bodies, the object-bodies. All of them are part of a continuum of power relationships that flux between their border-ed(less) surfaces. Our work demands awareness of how these bodies touch, what galvanizes them to do so, and how touch can create change in each of them.. Even with this awareness, , the arts and cultural sphere faces huge obstacles for creating a sense of bonding and human togetherness. What bonds did we lose during the lockdown and what strategies should we use for recovering them?
Different social justice movements such as Black feminisms, Indigenous Decolonial thought, and queer liberation aim for the recognition of bodily knowledge to decodify the entangled structures that support white supremacy, patriarchal order, and capitalist regime. Thus, while social distancing has worked as a strategy for collective care during the pandemic, I agree with Galindo that it is urgent to recover collective embodiment. And here, touch and closeness cannot be merely metaphorical. As cultural workers we have the responsibility to reflect on how touch occurred before the pandemic and how we should foster it now.
Although I do not have all the answers, I believe looking at the theory and discussion around sexuality can provide us with valuable tools for recreating intimacy. Just as the AIDS activism movement reminds us, we should not forget that it is not only disease that spreads through touch, but also pleasure, affects, and collective action. While distancing was a necessary practice to take care of ourselves, now intimacy and collective bonding are the ones that should find us ready for contagion.
La Postal by Terremoto Exhibition Series
Mexico City, México
2019
Spanish version
Abstract
Working for 4 years in the socialization of a grassroots archive of sexual culture in Mexico called El Insulto, I have found that centering touch in our practice helps to unravel valuable tools for collective bodily knowledge. But what does touch and its affects mean in a post-lock-down world? We used to take touch for granted; has it now acquired new significance? How does its re-accommodation into our new reality affects artistic communities? And how returning to it can help us not lose sight of our missions in this hyper-capitalist world?
Through reflecting upon El Insulto’s exhibition Please Touch. Embracing the memories of desire, I will share how touch, intimacy, and consent are not only fundamental axis for the socialization of sexualities, can help us as cultural workers to create dynamics for surpassing the challenges that a post-touch world brought and how to recover it for the sake of embodied practices and intimate socialization.
On touch / untouched: What sexuality socialization can teach us in a post-lockdown world
By Michelle Davó
En el 2020, María Galindo, cofundadora del movimiento boliviano anarquista-feminista Mujeres Creando, escribió que “El coronavirus es un arma de destrucción y prohibición (…) de la protesta social, donde nos dicen que lo más peligroso es juntarnos y reunirnos.” En tiempos de contagio, Galindo consideraba un absurdo cerrar fronteras, no salir a las calles, dejar de ver a quienes amamos. Lo consideraba absurdo porque el contagio es inevitable. Porque el contagio, escribió, es como respirar. Y “no poder respirar es a lo que nos condena el coronavirus, más que por la enfermedad por la reclusión, la prohibición y la obediencia.” Ella proponía que en lugar de dejarnos creer que podíamos evitar el contagio con la distancia, realizáramos una preparación colectiva, amorosa y acuerpada para lo que se nos venía encima. Así, no dejar que el coronavirus se instrumentalizara por el Estado para disipar nuestras luchas afectivas en espacios públicos, ni nuestros encuentros políticos a puerta cerrada. Ella decía, “que nos encuentre el coronavirus, listas para el contagio.”
En el 2022, el distanciamiento sigue. Pero, como presintió Galindo, el contagio resultó inevitable. En este tiempo no sólo perdimos seres querides, sino que, con la obediencia al distanciamiento, también muchas veces la oportunidad de despedirnos. Por ello, el contacto ha tomado significados contradictorios. La cercanía, que por mucho tiempo dimos por una necesidad naturalmente concedida, se volvió un arma de doble filo. ¿Cómo valoramos ahora eso que consideramos obligatorio evitar para la supervivencia, pero a la vez necesario para vivir? Dos años después, aunque la incertidumbre sigue siendo la única seguridad, con una población –medianamente– vacunada nos sentimos más preparades para recuperar los espacios físicos de la colectividad gozosa y política. Pero más allá de las precauciones mandatorias de COVID, ¿qué otros retos se nos presentan en nuestros esfuerzos de retomar contacto? ¿Será que la huella del aislamiento y la ansiedad de (con)vivir creó una barrera en nuestra capacidad individual y colectiva de acercarnos?
Estas preguntas me las hago no sólo como sujeto viviente de la pandemia, sino como gestora cultural. Desde el 2018 trabajo en El Insulto, una plataforma autogestiva dedicada a la preservación y difusión de un archivo de documentos sobre sexualidad del siglo XX con circulación en México. Entre diciembre y noviembre del 2019 –tres meses antes de que inciara la cuarentena– tuvimos nuestra última exposición como parte del programa La Postal de Terremoto Magazine en la Ciudad de México. Se ruega tocar. Intimar con las memorias del deseo tenía como objetivo utilizar reflexiones centrales alrededor de la sexualidad para cuestionar las dinámicas archivísticas y expositivas contemporáneas.
La intimidad, el consenso y la fantasía son conceptos en torno a la sexualidad que guiaron el montaje de nuestros materiales. En los archivos tradicionales, los rituales burocráticos para la consulta de documentos provocan un distanciamiento emocional y físico entre el sujeto y el material consultado. Nosotres queríamos repensar esa dinámica jerárquica al alentar que nuestros participantes manipularan libremente los libros, revistas y fotografías. Colocamos cojines y tapetes en el suelo para que los asistentes tuvieran que sentarse o recostarse para tomar los objetos exhibidos, los cuales mayoritariamente contienen imágenes de personas desnudas recostadas. Queríamos incentivar una relación horizontal e íntima entre ellos basada en una postura compartida entre imágenes y asistentes: vulnerable y relajada.
Sin embargo, diseñar un espacio cómodo no es suficiente para generar cercanía. Creamos un reglamento de sala, donde se priorizaba por igual la seguridad de asistentes y objetos: las personas tenían permitido recostarse en los cojines mientras que los objetos tenían permitido recostarse en las mesas. Las personas podían salir de la sala, pero los objetos no. Las personas debían de tomar los objetos con cuidado y los objetos no debían manchar las manos de les asistentes. Este juego de reglas tanto para participantes como documentos contesta a la discusión sobre la importancia del consenso en los debates de la sexualidad. Buscamos generar una reflexión sobre responsabilidad compartida al darle a los objetos agencia propia. Nuestros documentos reflejan los cuerpos y deseos de personas del pasado y por ende, merecen un diálogo horizontal, respetuoso y afectivo con quienes los encuentren.
La creación de este espacio seguro, con su propias reglas, propició que la exposición se viviera también como un espacio de fantasía. Rodeado por cortinas, los participantes debían develar lo que escondía para poder entrar al cuarto dentro de un cuarto: un espacio contenido donde relacionarte con los materiales es un suceso cómodo e íntimo. Entre las hojas de algunas publicaciones colocamos reimpresiones fotográficas de la colección. De esta manera, les participantes no sólo des-cubrían las cortinas para entrar, sino también las fotografías escondidas.
Fue así que lo táctil resultó una experiencia crucial para generar cercanía con los documentos: correr la cortina, recargarse en los cojines acolchados, tomar las publicaciones de las mesas, descubrir nuevos materiales al hojearlos. El reglamento permitió que este contacto se realizara de forma horizontal y respetuosa guiada por los propios límites de les participantes y, por lo tanto, por las prácticas consensuadas.
Antes de la pandemia, pensar en la sexualidad y su valor político y afectivo nos permitió al equipo de Archivo El Insulto proponer estrategias basadas en la importancia del contacto para generar relaciones afectivas entre documentos y personas. Revisitando la exposición, ahora más que nunca veo el poder del tacto como una vía para (re)construir lazos comunitarios y recuperar intimidades perdidas más allá de los espacios de la sexualidad.
Mientras más me introduzco en los estudios y la práctica de la gestión cultural, es que mejor comprendo que la mejora de nuestro sector se reduce al contacto entre cuerpos: los cuerpos sociales, los cuerpos individuales, los cuerpos-territorio, los cuerpos-objetos. Todos forman parte de un continuo de relaciones de poder que fluye entre sus superficies sin frontera. Nuestro trabajo nos demanda una mayor conciencia de cómo es que estos cuerpos se tocan, qué los llevó a hacerlo y qué cambios produce en cada uno el contacto entre ellos. A pesar de esta conciencia en nuestra profesión, observo los retos que la esfera cultural y artística enfrenta para retomar el contacto para generar relaciones y cercanía. ¿Qué lazos perdimos con el distanciamiento y qué estrategias debemos utilizar para reconstruirlos?
Diversos pensamientos como lo son los feminismos negros, pensamientos indígenas decoloniales, y los estudios queer apuntan al reconocimiento del conocimiento corpóreo para decodificar los entrañamientos estructurales que mantienen la supremacía blanca, el orden patriarcal, el régimen capitalista. Así que, mientras que el distanciamiento es una forma de cuidado colectivo en el marco de la pandemia, concuerdo con Galindo en que retomar el acuerpamiento social es urgente. Y este contacto no puede seguir siendo metafórico. Les gestores culturales tenemos una responsabilidad en reflexionar cómo era el contacto antes de la pandemia, y cómo debemos de procurarlo ahora.
Aunque no cuento con respuestas certeras, aprender de los valores y debates de los activismos y las comunidades en torno a la sexualidad puede otorgarnos herramientas valiosas para regenerar nuestras cercanías. Tal vez las enfermedades se propician por el contacto, pero como nos recuerdan los activismos del SIDA, no nos permitamos olvidar que no sólo la enfermedad se contagia por contacto, sino el placer, los afectos, y la acción colectiva. Mientras que el distanciamiento fue una práctica necesaria para procurarnos, ahora son las intimidades y los contactos colectivos quienes nos deben encontrar listes para el contagio.
Michelle Davó Michelle Davo Ortiz is an arts administrator and researcher from Mexico City. She is carrying out the dual degree at SAIC with the support of the Fulbright-Garcia Robles fellowship, the Jumex Museum scholarship, and the SAIC’s Pritzker Scholarship. Since 2018, Michelle has worked as the project coordinator of El Insulto Archive, where she co-curated the exhibitions “Please touch. Embracing the Memories of Desire” at La Postal-Terremoto and “A Particular Collection” at Noche de Archivos Abiertos. She has also worked as the Communication Coordinator of Vulgar — a sex education collective focused on pleasure and social justice, a curatorial volunteer for Museo Nacional de Arte, and a mediation volunteer for Museo Jumex de Arte Contemporáneo. Her research centers on the intersections of sexuality, affect, and social justice in theoretical and historiographic arts studies.