CareCureCards

Collaboration with Elvira Fabregat

Activated in LiveInYourHead and during the picnic des Eaux vives during Women’s Strike 14.06.2019.

April 2019 - ongoing

CareCureCards is a polyvalent instrument that re-appropriates visual productions of feminist activists of the past and present as a tool to impact the artistic/educative/political process. CareCureCards is comprised of three parts: a deck of cards with pictures, a notebook, and a lexicon.

The deck of cards transmit the concepts of “care” and “cure.” We wanted to elicit multiple definitions of care—nurturing, growth, burden, anguish, love, responsibility—through our images. The “Cure” in our name suggests that the conversations we enable through the gatherings would have the function of both self-care and group cure.

These cards have two sides: on one side there is a botanical illustration of plants; on the other, collages. The images of plants that have rhizomatic structures carry the metaphor of care, cure, connection, continual growth, and strength. On the flip side, collages that we created are from political feminist posters or illustrations that are and were speaking about different forms of care work in different geographical locations and times. The original sources that we used for collage are collected in the notebook that people can consult to find out more about the work of the artists and activists and the political movements related to care around the globe.

Another set of cards is a lexicon that can be used during the discussion. The current lexicon contains keywords summarizing our researches on care, and in the future, it could be re-composed to accommodate the context where the cards would be activated.

Photography: Jeremy Saâdi

Entralacs and Feminist Festival

LiveInYourHead

April 2019

Entralacs is a two week festival/exhibition realized by thirteen students of TRANS - a master’s program at Live In Your Head, the curatorial institute of HEAD - Geneva. The exhibition explored multiple forms that socially engaged artistic practices may take. During the first weekend KimyiBo and Elvira, with artists Magali Raspail and Giulia Ferrati, organized Feminist Festival with the aim to create a feminist space that allow for encounters and discussions around questions related to gender, specifically on the concept of self-care and the idea of creating “safe-spaces.” We collaborated with artists, activists, and public speakers to create public events for two days: among others, Acapello - a collective of musicians studying at Haute école de musique de Genève-Institute Jacque Dalcroze; Crépidules - a Geneva based podcast; Angela Marzullo - artist; and Collective Genève pour grève féministe 14.6.2019. The first day of the weekend was designated specifically for women, who were invited to reflect collectively on the relationship between the intimate and the political.

Project École: Utopian Playground

École des Libellules, Geneva

Sept 2017-Jun 2018

This project was conducted with a class of 7P students (aged 10 - 11) at École Libellules in Vernier and four artists: KimyiBo, Laura Braillard, Jeanne Martin-Taton, Isabella Valenzi Guillia. Through the process of creating an imaginary playground, the students worked together to investigate how the architecture of the playground influences their daily activities in the space. the artists introduced students to the works of artists and architects across the globe, and the community imagined and constructed an alternative playground; opening up a universe of possible activities to animate the space.

Using a map of the school’s playground drawn by the artists as an tool of investigation, the students observed the proground and created elements of a fictional playgroung through writings, collages, and drawings. Students and artists collectively designed posters and printed them via silkscreen at the artists’ printmaking studio, which were installed in locations throughout the playground by the students in the presence of friends and family. Through this project, students learned how to use art as a means to express their potential, as well as the principles and practice of democratic participation.