HABITĀR | María Luisa Portuondo

This publication by Chilean artist Maria Luisa Portuondo Vila is the result of the sonic-visual piece HABITĀR, reminiscencias 2020 which was created both in Santiago de Chile and New York in 2020-2021.

The project, a twofold exhibition, builds on hundreds of stories which the artist collected via voice messages during lockdown. By means of these, she creates what she refers to as narrativas colectivas (collective narratives), delivered to the audience via sonic capsules concerning themes such as perception of time, maternity, paternity, sexuality, nature, mourning and childhood during the pandemic.

On the second phase of the project, Maria Luisa decides to give shape to the sonic piece, de-constructing the drafted script and stamping each set of letters, sounds and onomatopoeias registered in those audios on diminutive pieces of a 2020 calendar, which unfolds as a ballad of the passing of time. She later inserts these pieces of dialogue into microscope glass slides, alluding to the process of analysis brought about by the virus and extending an invitation to observe the resulting psychic movement.

This edition consists of 40 items of 25 pieces each, which compose the total installation as it is today, and it appears to those who decide to acquire it as a microscope-slide holder box preserving the samples of a Collective Memory which must be protected.