Strata of Emotion is a project carried out between 2007 and 2008, based on the creation of symbolic portraits through elements of nature, highlighting questions of identity with regard to the mark we leave on our surroundings.
The different series of the project arose from collaborative dynamics, some individual and others in pairs, where the participants were invited to cover their naked bodies with clay in order to leave their imprint on the paper, according to different guidelines. The next step consisted of conducting interviews, where participants defined themselves by drawing analogies with elements of nature.
The project consists of two main parts: Forest of Portraits and Geography of Embrace. In the first part, the participants covered their naked bodies in clay, and left the imprint of their bodies on the paper, thinking about what they would be like if they were trees. This was followed by interviews in which they defined themselves as trees. With this analogy, the participants, by talking about their roots, trunks and branches, were portraying themselves from their origin to their way of expressing themselves.
Geography of the Embrace are landscapes or cartographies made from the traces left on paper of the embraces of different couples and their testimonies, in which they describe the “geographies”, the “atmospheres” or the “landscapes” of this experience, using these narrations, I intervened the traces, recreating these “places” with watercolours, using the words as a trace that defines the mud.
The result is different pieces, which recreate a sort of “cartographies”, portraits that come from language and physical action. The definition of an environment moulded through words and corporeal emotionality.
