Frida Robles - Portfolio 2017 by Frida Robles

Frida Robles Essayist-artist Selected Works

Lux mea spes, In-‐situ dance i ntervention, Cheikh Anta Diop University, 2 016

Numerous students living at the student houses from the Cheikh Anta Diop university in Dakar, Senegal; go out every night to study under the street lights of the campus boulevard. Every night they go to memorize and rehearse words; words meaningful to their future practices. J acques Derrida understands the university profession – professors – to be intrinsically related to the religious act of professing. To profess is an act of faith. Studying is, as well, an act of faith.

Documentation of the action. © Phillipa Ndisi-‐Herrmann, 2016

The murmurs and the slow movements of these students resemble praying acts. Movements allow for knowledge to be embodied. The public space becomes their private-‐c ommunal space. Lux mea lex (“Light i s my law”) i s Cheikh Anta Diop’s motto; strangely enough most of these young people are law students profiting from public lighting. There is a hope for future, a hope projected towards knowledge as a means to materialize dreams. Most acts of faith are acts of courage; these students are definitely courageous.

With the participation of Pi Krump, Inas Dasylva, Bienvenu Gomis, Khadim Ndiayea and Clarisse Sagna

Documentation of the rehearsal © Frida Robles, 2016.

Love letters for free, Public action, Mexico City, 2015

“I do not understand love stories”, was the starting point of an investigation about romantic love; followed by an act of public writing. During three months I worked as a scrivener at the Santo Domingo public square in Mexico City. My scrivener duty was to write love letters, for free.

Documentation of the action. © Daniela Whaley, 2015

Scriveners are the professionals that write letters or documents for legal purposes, or for people who cannot read or write. Mexico City still maintains this dying tradition and a c ommunity, of approximately 40 scriveners, goes to work everyday at the arcades of the Santo Domingo public square. This square was founded in the 16th Century as part of the catechist and urban activities of the Spanish colonial period in the -‐at the time-‐ recently conquered Tenochtitlán. Being a temporary scrivener was for me a nostalgic act and, as well, a means to have a direct interaction with passers-‐by. The scrivener writes in the public space and his or her writing is affected by the other, the client.

As the philosopher Alain Badiou states, l ove must be reinvented, but more i mportantly, i t must be protected, because it is threatened by many fronts. Mexico, and many parts of the world, i s currently experiencing alarming social situations where violence and gore showmanship are the currency of exchange for public discourse. What then can be elaborated from a public and written call to reflect on our ideas about love? Is love something more than the “romantic”? Can we think of l ove as a daily action? As a social setting? As a conscious act? Documentation of the action. © Julio Llorente, 2015

As a result from the action I kept a c arbon copy of 1 15 l etters that I wrote together with the participants during this pubilc action. After the public action, I wrote an essay book entitled “Toda carta de amor es una historia de fantasmas” ( Every love letter is a ghost story) which reflects upon the spectral character of r omantic love as well as notions of legacy and relationships toweards our cities.

M2. ¿Cómo se habita un metro cuadrado?, Dance and poetry performance, e, Mexico City , 2016 with dancer Casilda Madrazo

A text and dance reflection on restricted space. What does it mean to l ive in a square meter? Was the question to ask.

Documentation of the action, 2016

This is not an opinion, Performative photography, Portugal, 2014 with actress Stavrianna Daouti

What is the structure of an opinion? What are they made of? We live amongnst them.

This is not an opinion, Â 2 014

29 definitions of independence 29 type written cardboard cards, 2014 Developed at the Residency 108 (New York State, USA)

We are all dependent was the conclusion I arrived at after questioning myself if I could define independence. Could I define inependence for my own life? Could I live up to my standards? Had I defined myself after 29 years of living? "29 definitions of independence" plays with the memory of what I have lived, experienced and faced and my impossibility to define this important concept.

Erasing my personal history Video and photograph, 04:45’’, 2014 Developed at the Residency 108 (New York State, USA)

"If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed;; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts. It is best to erase all personal history because that makes us free from the encumbering thoughts of other people." Carlos Castaneda (Don Juan)

I decided to write 29 sad memories, one for each year that I had lived. The words that Don Juan tells to Castaneda wer e more than challenging. What could be more radical that to erase your own history? Memory attaches itself to ego and desires, to expectations and sadness. P ersonal memory is a mirror upon which you look at yourself and formulate a self. Could I go around without history? Without sad memories? Would I be more open to life, to the world without personal history? Link to video

PRESQU’ILE Video, 08:45’’, 2016 Collaboration with Philippa Ndisi-Herrmann Developed at the RAW Academy (Dakar, Senegal)

Two women of the very sam e age, mirrors to each other, black curly hair, warm milky skin, eyes that call your attention. On an almost island their paths cross, suspended in time her e they enter a portal. Here they learn from each other, about the very thing that is at the forefront of their chests, love. And upon this learning they can move on.

HOBBY HORSE LTD., Urban intevention, Hildesheim, Germany, 2015 Project by Blind Date Collaboration (David Palme, Marie-Christin Rissinger, Konstantin Wolf, Gerardo Montes de Oca, Frida Robles)

Part of the activities of 2 015 Transeuropa Performance Festival Link to documentation video.

During May 2015 we set up a fake hobby consultancy called “Hobby Horse Ltd.” The shop was located at the Hindenburg Platz of Hildesheim, one of the main squares in the city.

Capital neoliberalism has emerged parallel to very complex, sometimes too evident and some other times very subtle forms of exploitation. It constantly develops new forms of commodification of life, creating necessities and reaching any possible human activity to be co-‐opted in order to profit. As part of these processes, today‘s market policies are dictating and administrating not only labour and the working life, but people‘s everyday life and the so called free time. In such context, free time is commodified and becomes a product to be consumed in the terms of the market. People are told to be free to choose and use their free time—when social and political, or exploitative, conditions allow it—but what often happens is that enterprises and market— also in accordance to policies—dictate the place, form, means, pace, time and logics of the consumption of it. It is in rare cases that the fr ee time is genuinely self defined and self organised. This project critically and satirically addresses to these issues as w ell as to the historical course of labour and its future possible trajectory in contemporary capitalist societies. It does not approach work directly but through what it is not, by means of one of its oppositional activities: the hobby. The notion of hobby refers to an activity that is realised for pleasure and does not lead to any sort of capitalist productivity or outcome. Hence, we created a fictional company called Hobby Horse Ltd. which takes these logics to extreme over-‐i dentification in order to make visible the schizophrenic, directive and exploitative logics of labour. Persuasive and manipulative strategies of the market, commodification and administration of people‘s free time and life, forms of exploitation, bodily substitution and expertise as control are addressed.

“15 Minute settlement” Participatory art project, Interdisciplinary team : Nisrine Boukhari, F rida Robles

Through our paradox of a "15 minute settlement" we want to create a situation in the city. Is there a place for nomadic/wandering paths in More and contemporary cities? more,people are leaving the place where they were born and are residing in many different places throughout their lives. The mind and the body are in movement. These movements affect the places where they are subscribed. Can we develop strategies to inc lude the people that have nomadic life style or wandering state of mind? What does it mean for a city to be a 15 minute settler ? Fluidity is the notion of our time.

We were bringing the suitcase to many places in Vienna. After choosing a specific place in the city we installed the curtain against a wall and we installed all the things that are inside the suitcase just under the curtain. We drew a line around them with the chalk, we left space for a door so that visitors can enter the space. We left the suitcase outside of the marked space. The suitcase was labeled as "15 minute settlement". After we were "settled", we invited passersby to enter this settlement and we explained the goal of this project. Afterwards we asked them three basic questions: 1)What is home for you? 2) Where are you from? 3)Do you feel at home in Vienna (the city where the action is taking place)?

One example from the interviewed:

people

have

Q: What is h o m e for yo u ? A: For me home is where I feel safe, where I don’t have to be afraid of be in danger, of risk of being molested, not feeling safe or not being able to trust in anyone. Home is where I can feel trust in life and in other people. That does not necessarily means that I need to be in my home country or in my flat, depends on the circumstances and on the structure, to be and to feel safe. Q: Where are you from? A: I’m from Austria, Vienna. Q: D o you feel at h o m e i n Vienna? A: In some aspects I do feel at home here in Vienna. I have my friends here and I have my profession here and Vienna is a very s afe country and there is almost no criminality. The other things that doesn’t make me feel at home is racism in Vienna.

“ What doesn’t make me f eel at home is racism “

The art of walking cities (sugar urbanism) based on “Walking in the City” by Michael de Certeau, Digital photography, Austria, 2012

The panorama city is a visual simulacrum whose condition of possibility is an oblivion and a misunder-‐ standing of practices.

The practitioners of the city are walkers of an urban text they write without being able to read it.

Spatial practices secretly structure the determining conditions of social life. Their intertwined paths give their shape to spaces. The language of power is in itself urbanizing.

Frida Robles ttps://fridarobles.wordpress.com/ Â h http://cargocollective.com/fridarobles fridarobles@gmail.com