Mireia Sallares Las muertes chiquitas / The Little Deaths

CCA is pleased to present Las muertes chiquitas (The Little Deaths), a project by Catalan artist Mireia Sallares. Not just a film, Las muertes chiquitas is a complex project which includes a book, a photographic installation, an exhibition, a documentation centre and a series of discussions. For this iteration, Sallares will present a performance, workshop and discussion evening focusing on the making of the film in Mexico and the issues raised in the work, followed by a separate screening of the film, which is five hours long and screened in two parts with a break in between.

La muerte chiquita (The little death) is the colloquial expression in Mexico for an orgasm. A descriptive expression that, although it refers to a sexually excited climax, also contains the imagery associated with death. These are, also, the paths taken with the narrations of the women that Mireia Sallarès interviews during three years. The most intimate confessions about their relationship with pleasure, and also pain, but nearly as a pretext that allows them stretch out, embark on fragmented stories about their private experiences which, in one way or another, are interwoven with the historical context and social group they are immersed in.

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“Orgasms, like the land, belong to those who work them,” is a catchphrase that runs through a number of the voices involved in this project that the Catalan artist, Mireia Sallarès, launched over six years ago as a journey across the Mexican republic, accompanied only by her camera and a luminous neon sign that read “Las muertes chiquitas” (The Little Deaths).

The land—in this case, the land of Mexico—beneath the more or less obvious surface of reality, is sedimented with subjectivities and their roots, conflicts, and desires. Orgasms - in this case, women’s orgasms - shared or solitary, cathartic or frustrated, are a possible point of departure toward the establishment of links between public and private or erotic and political domains. The intimate site of sexuality thus takes its place on the stage of public pleasure, that is to say, of eroticism constructed by means of diverse ideological, religious, and cultural mechanisms of transaction and control.

The central element of the complex weave of this project is the feature documentary that registers moments from the artist’s interviews with a variety of Mexican women. Premiering the film in the abandoned Cine Ópera movie house uproots the orgasmic experiences from their state of intimacy and takes them to a space of public reflection and discussion.

This becomes clear in the course of the discussion panels organized by the artist, where pleasure is related to armed struggle, feminicide, trans-sexuality, theology of feminist liberation, prostitution, illness, exile, the plurality of Mexican identity, and the ethical commitment of art to socio-political reality. This is also reflected in the book that documents the project, which not only tells the tale of the process but also situates the women’s experiences at a crossroads of theoretical focuses.

In the face of the existing system—as Las muertes chiquitas makes very clear—the land, the body, and the pleasure derived from their construction all reclaim their rights to an active, reflective, and inclusive participation.

Thanks to Helena Braunštajn.

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/74646499" width="500" height="334" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/74646499">Little Deaths (Las Muertes Chiquitas)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/facetsmultimedia">Facets</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>