La gaviota (the seagull)
La gaviota (the seagull) by Ariadna. Presented to the public for the first time by Mercurius Magazine.
Being a body
Ser un cuerpo (Being a body), C-print on paper, 60 x 65 cm, 2020. Victor Manzanal.
Riding the first wave: Lockdown in Paris
Lockdown can feel like prison. No long walks, nor catching up with friends. Everyone you know is scattered across the city, out of physical reach. Policemen patrol the streets. You sit alone in your room, grim and anxious, perhaps even depressed.
Food and flames: BBQ revolution
Everything makes a difference on a barbecue. From the choice of wood, charcoal or briquettes to the quality of seal around the rim (for steaming and smoking) to the use and type of wood chips.
Fire
As the yearly heat begins again, the city comes to life. With lockdown eased, the roads pulsate with cars, and the terraces of bars are brimming with drinkers and diners. Those eerie days of March, of emptiness and birdsong-haunted avenues, have started to recede. Perhaps all this will be a memory soon. How much normality will be restored, if any?
Meditations: Fire
Given that everyone can now make very passable images with their handsets, to reach another level it is a matter of nuance: how to trick the machine to show the perceived but otherwise unseen.
Light without shadows
An interpretation of Welsh poet R. S. Thomas' poem 'A land' for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, guitar and piano. Performed and recorded by The Braid Ensemble with guest mezzo Emily Gray.
What the living do
I discovered Marie Howe through her book "What the Living Do" published in Caracas. A book that follows the threads of the illness and death of a loved one (her brother) and subtly connects us to the birth and transparency of all shadows.
Mercuries #1: Sculptural poetry
I'm interested in three dimensions and poetry, and what we might term sculptural poetry. Why is language two-dimensional when it is objective material? Why does this bleed into what we take the social engagement of reading, and speaking, to be? The head, the mouth, the tongue, the ears: objects in the world.
Earth
The month of May belongs to Aphrodite, the mother goddess, famed for love and beauty. This year the city seems to bless her more than other years. The shops, silent behind their steel shutters, announce a different kind of place: all sense of being in a hurry gone; nothing to buy, just days to live, without the noise and fuss of all those small invented worlds, the markets, schools, and mausoleums, competing for space with Mother Earth.
If this is the stuff dreams are made of
If this is the stuff dreams are made of, acrylic and oil on linen, 116 x 89cm, 2015. Jose Castiella.
Water
In Barcelona, they say the spring begins when orange blossom fills the cloisters of the old monastery, just off Calle Hospital, in the old town neighbourhood of El Raval. This year, no such initiation. The gates are locked, the library closed. Only birds frequent that fragrant desolation.
The never-ending quest…
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