Cristina Mancero (Ecuador)
Dislocar: poéticas de cuerpos derramados / Dislocate: poetics of spilled bodies
[spanish / english]
Abordar la discapacidad desde el limbo. Desde un país violento que se va quedando sin terminaciones nerviosas. Hablar sin voz. Inventar una lengua propia. Ver el mundo desde la ceguera. Traducir una coreografía, un secuestro. Parpadear y escuchar el parpadeo. La discapacidad irrumpe y caotiza y crea y sostiene y cuestiona y acaricia. Abrazar la cicatriz. Habitar la herida. Vocalizar, verbalizar, signar. / Approaching disability from limbo. From a violent country that is running out of nerve endings. To speak without a voice. Inventing a language of our own. To see the world from blindness. To translate a choreography, a hijacking. Blinking and listening to the blinking. Disability bursts and chaoticizes and creates and sustains and questions and caresses. To embrace the scar. To inhabit the wound. To vocalize, to verbalize, to sign.
Approaching disability from limbo. From a violent country that is running out of nerve endings. To speak without a voice. Inventing a language of our own. To see the world from blindness. To translate a choreography, a hijacking. Blinking and listening to the blinking. Disability bursts and chaoticizes and creates and sustains and questions and caresses. To embrace the scar. To inhabit the wound. To vocalize, to verbalize, to sign.
_
I
¿Acompañarse es eludir la realidad? ¿Reírse disminuye la violencia, el hecho de que el país está en guerra? Lo que se dice con las manos es una verdad, la verdad de un país que se cae a pedazos y los pedazos, una vez en lo hondo, son una memoria. Los pedazos son la noticia violenta que no se alcanza a digerir porque después de un momento ocurre algo peor y peor y peor. El video es la verdad de un país que sabe lo que me pasó, pero también es la verdad de no estar sola. Es la certeza de que la amistad es lo único que nos sostiene, es la verdad de que en las manos hay complicidad, de que en la risa hay una lengua en común, de que estar les semejantes (las amigas) nos salva, nos salva de la vida.
Vivian – desde la sordera (hipoacusia)
I
Is to accompany oneself to elude reality? Does laughing diminish the violence, the fact that the country is at war? What is said with the hands is a truth, the truth of a country that is falling to pieces and the pieces, once in the depths, are a memory. The pieces are the violent news that cannot be digested because after a moment something worse and worse and worse happens. The video is the truth of a country that knows what happened to me, but it is also the truth of not being alone. It is the certainty that friendship is the only thing that sustains us, it is the truth that in our hands there is complicity, that in laughter there is a common language, that being with like-minded people (friends) saves us, saves us from life.
Vivian - from deafness (hypoacusis)
II
Siempre sentí fascinación por la estructura del ojo. Desde niña quería entrar en el ojo y sentir sus texturas, enterrar mis dedos en el humor acuoso como en gelatina, mirar/tocar por horas el cristalino y ver cómo transforma la luz o, al menos, imaginarlo, inventarlo, mirar los colores de la retina y saber que así es el universo y pensar en que mi retina se estira se estira y se rompe... De alguna forma, eso hacían los médicos conmigo... entraban en mí con lámparas, agujas, bisturís; y yo, ausente en la mirada, nunca pude ver mi ojo. Los ojos me generan una ternura infinita… y en el ojo soy todavía yo entrando en el ojo que ve el ojo que ve el ojo que ve.
Merce – desde la baja visión progresiva
II
I have always been fascinated by the structure of the eye. Since I was a child I wanted to enter the eye and feel its textures, to bury my fingers in the aqueous humor as in jelly, to watch/touch for hours the crystalline lens and see how it transforms the light or, at least, to imagine it, to invent it, to look at the colors of the retina and know that this is the universe and to think that my retina stretches, stretches and breaks. Somehow, that's what the doctors did with me... they entered me with lamps, needles, scalpels; and I, absent in my gaze, could never see my eye. The eyes generate an infinite tenderness in me... and in the eye it is still me entering the eye that sees the eye that sees the eye that sees the eye that sees.
I have always been fascinated by the structure of the eye. Since I was a child I wanted to enter the eye and feel its textures, to bury my fingers in the aqueous humor as in jelly, to watch/touch for hours the crystalline lens and see how it transforms the light or, at least, to imagine it, to invent it, to look at the colors of the retina and know that this is the universe and to think that my retina stretches, stretches and breaks. Somehow, that's what the doctors did with me... they entered me with lamps, needles, scalpels; and I, absent in my gaze, could never see my eye. The eyes generate an infinite tenderness in me... and in the eye it is still me entering the eye that sees the eye that sees the eye that sees the eye that sees.
Merce - from progressive low vision
Hace dos décadas perdió una cuerda vocal y desde entonces se hace preguntas sobre la identidad, la voz, la discapacidad, el ser o no ser / el tener o no tener. En este recorrido, ha tratado el tema de la “cuerda vocal extraviada”, directa e indirectamente, a través del documental, la fotografía, la poesía y el ensayo.
En 2016 publicó su ensayo "Aclarando la garganta" y, en ese mismo año, fue parte de la antología "Voces Nuevas" (poesía) de la Colección Torremozas (España). En 2017 fue parte de la muestra artística "Cuerpos que se miran". Su obra, titulada “Y un hueco nunca más se cerró”, abarcó fotografía, instalación sonora y poesía. Esta obra fue también exhibida en la VIII Bienal de Arte Contemporáneo Fundación ONCE (España, 2022). En noviembre de 2023 publicó el libro "Cuerpario", sobre discapacidades invisibles, junto con siete escritorxs de Ecuador. / Cristina Mancero (Guayaquil, Ecuador, 1977) is an audiovisual communicator, with studies in Documentary Film at the University of Chile and Composition & Rhetoric at the University of Louisville. Her interests range from gender issues, the LGBTIQ+ community, feminism, theories of disability, poetry, documentary filmmaking and sign language.
Two decades ago she lost a vocal cord and since then has been asking questions about identity, voice, disability, to be or not to be / to have or not to have. In this journey, she has dealt with the theme of the “lost vocal cord”, directly and indirectly, through documentary, photography, poetry and essay.
In 2016 she published her essay “Aclarando la garganta” and, in the same year, she was part of the anthology “Voces Nuevas” (poetry) of the Torremozas Collection (Spain). In 2017 she was part of the artistic exhibition “Cuerpos que se miran” (Bodies that look at each other). Her work, entitled “Y un hueco nunca más se cerró” (And a hole never closed again), encompassed photography, sound installation and poetry. This work was also exhibited at the VIII Biennial of Contemporary Art ONCE Foundation (Spain, 2022). In November 2023 she published the book “Cuerpario”, about invisible disabilities, together with seven writers from Ecuador.