REBIRTH (Roberto Currás)

When the toughest phase of lockdown ended and I was able to go out for the first time, the first thing I did was go to the beach, looking for, perhaps, as much clean air as possible and a space for freedom that seemed to me to be immense. I reached the beach and, unexpectedly, started playing with the stones on the shore; small stones between 5 and 10 centimetres. Then I put them in a bag and repeated this operation for several days, taking them home and painting female faces on them.

Looking at the work Woman with Scorpions, by the Mexican painter Francisco Toledo, I think about the possibility of symbolic rebirth after the tragedy that we have all experienced to a greater or lesser extent during this pandemic.

Personally, out of all possible symbolic readings of this work, the one that most strikes me is that of fertility as a metaphor for the birth of something new.

The dialogue that I wish to present was born from the meaning of the two-headed serpent within pre-Hispanic culture. According to Manuel Gamboa Cabezas, researcher at the INAH Hidalgo Center (Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History), this snake is understood as “the arrival of light and something new”.

On the floor, in the centre of the installation, we see a sign with the word “COVID-19”, around which spiral a row of stones in three colours: red, black and white, combined with female faces.