The poem holds on at the edge of itself; so as to exist, it ceaselessly calls and hauls itself
from its Now-no-more back into its Ever-yet.
Paul Celan
During the twentieth century, physical access to outer space not only gave humanity fictions to think of ourselves as universal and interplanetary beings or to imagine life in micro-communities inside a ship or on the surface of a hostile planet; it also offered the world a collection of unparalleled images: the footprint of a man on the surface of the Moon, the approach to the origin of the Big Bang and, reigning supreme, the subjective image of an eye seeing our planet entire, live and unmediated for the first time.
We are a spherical spacecraft sailing the universe in a cyclical orbit. And we are all aboard the same vehicle.
To move towards an outer space is to step outside ourselves and look at ourselves from the outside. It involves shifting our perspective in order to uncover other facets that can alter our behaviour: the space outside our own discipline, our own gender, our own reality.
This third edition of El borde de sí mismo [The Edge of Itself] stands in conversation with the exhibition A 18 minutos del sol [18 Minutes from the Sun]. It invites three artists from the performing arts and three from the visual arts to create six works that gravitate between disciplines and organise a stage time that allows them to share both the process and the construction of the work.
Imagining what has as yet no form, admitting error and accepting failure, co-existing with the audience in a space and time to which they are not usually invited, the work is conceived and written in the tension between the gaze of artist and public.
Curators: Alejandro Tantanian and Javier Villa
Week 1
José Guerrero / Un grano de polvo suspendido sobre un rayo de sol [A Mote of Dust Suspended in a Sunbeam]
An ancient memory. 1996. Cutral-Có (from the Mapudungún, meaning fire water). A desert territory, full of palaeontological riches, home to giant fossils and birthplace of stokers. The past lives on in this landscape. Thanks to the arid climate of the Cutral-Có, the sky in this petroca (“oil”) desert is pure. This purity provides us with the best view of the sky over our heads.
2023. A present that allows me to discover that the sky that saw me grow up is also a portal to travel through time. To look towards it is to look back. It is easy to lose yourself in the desert, but it is by looking up – to the past – that you can find your way home.
Un grano de polvo suspendido sobre un rayo de sol [A Mote of Dust Suspended in a Sunbeam] is a ritual to evoke memories, to invite friends to weave together images and hold on to those memories. A constellation, a ceremony to gaze up at the sky and ask that it be the starting point for a possible way home, that it say: the desert sky is near. It is a rehearsal made up of memories but which also projects into the future, linking imagination and emotions, outer space and the familiar universe through well-known images. / José Guerrero
Actors: Eddy García, José Guerrero, Virginia Leanza
Artistic advisor: Cuqui
Technical assistance: Vero López Olivera
Film archives: Leandro Listorti, Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken
Projection: Leandro Listorti
Lighting design: Tefa Piotrkowski
Sound design and editing: Mantrixa
Script and director: José Guerrero
Acknowledgements: Centro Cultural Recoleta, Museo del Cine Pablo Ducrós Hicken, Santiago Loza, Andrés Gallina, Tomás Corradi Bracco
Duration: 40 minutes
Performances
Friday 19 May, 8 p.m.
Saturday 20 May, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 21 May, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Get your ticket here
Week 2
Ernesto Ballesteros / Pequeño espacio de concientización cosmológica [A Small Space for Cosmological Awareness]
In a darkened space that is boundless and constantly expanding, the artist Ernesto Ballesteros talks about the history of the universe.
In this mysterious and oracular space, you will learn and be able to ask questions about major astronomical movements, atomic and quantum mysteries, and try to understand the logic of the cosmos.
Lighting design: Ernesto Ballesteros
Idea and interpretation: Ernesto Ballesteros
Duration: 40 minutes
Performances
Friday 26 May, 8 p.m.
Saturday 27 May, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 28 May, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Get your ticket here
Week 3
Gustavo Tarrío / La carta de la estrella [Star Chart]
In the ultimate of leading roles, Lola Bhajan (singer, performer, author) embarks on a journey to become a star in her very own constellation. To do so, she will put to use her fortune-telling skills with an Egyptian tarot deck, along with a re-edit of the cult film Starry Eyes, songs, poems and playbacks. This is a performance capable of bringing together stellar stage approaches from the past, present and future.
But it is neither science nor fiction. It is esotericism. It is docutransfiction. It is a rise, fall and resurrection that brings together Hollywood’s Walk of Fame and the private world of Parque Avellaneda.
And, when it is not possible to reach the stars, there is nothing greater than turning the incandescence of Lola Bhajan’s voice into a reflecting pool.
Performer: Lola Bhajan
Sound and track editing: Pablo Viotti
Artistic and stage assistance: Flor Schrott
Script: Gustavo Tarrío and Lola Bhajan
Director: Gustavo Tarrío
Acknowledgements: Violeta Tarrío, Diego Leone, Enanomalhecho
Duration: 50 minutes
Performances
Friday 2 June, 8 p.m.
Saturday 3 June, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 4 June, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Get your ticket here
Week 4
Porkería mala / Uuuff OOoh la nave endeudada [Ooff Oohh The Debt-Ridden Ship]
Strange creatures wander, lost, seeking to give life to a machine, to find a way out of this world which is not their own; a delusional dance, the ancient sound of stars.
The past and the future collide in the emergence of a grubby dystopia.
Performers: Kamil GuQuin, Diana del Mal, Malicia Mirai, Florencia Breccia and Porkería mala.
Sound design: Malicia Mirai, Diana del Mal
Director: Porkería mala
Duration: 30 minutes
Friday 9 June, 8 p.m.
Saturday 10 June, 4 p.m.
Sunday 11 June, 4 p.m.
Get your ticket here
Week 5
Tótem Tabú (Laura Códega, Malena Pizani and Hernán Soriano) / Burro [Donkey]
In an enclosure that lies outside the bounds of time, a recently deceased donkey meets his own ghost and has a conversation about historical, philosophical, identity and symbolic issues.
Historically, the donkey has been stereotyped as an animal that is difficult to tame, clumsy and stubborn. It has been used to symbolise the ignorant and the uneducated.
But couldn’t that stubbornness actually make him a hero? A possible standard-bearer for rising up against the masters?
Burro is an experimental work that uses the dialogue between its characters to address issues such as violence, death, the fallacy of freedom and the actions human beings take against nature.
Performer: Facundo René Torres & Lucas Olarte
Idea and director: Tótem Tabú
Duration: 40 minutes
Performances
Friday 16 June, 8 p.m.
Saturday 17 June, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 18 June, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Get your ticket here
Week 6
Marina Otero / Escenas para Kill me [Scenes from Kill Me]
A preview of Kill Me, which will premiere in 2024.
In March 2022, I moved to Madrid. Later that same year, I began to tour with two of my works: Fuck Me and Love Me, the last two shows from a project that seems endless and which consists of turning my ills into performances.
The intensity of the tour and all of those “non-places” – the airports, hotels, foreign languages – brought out an old emotional problem that was there all along, lurking beneath the surface.
The videos are a diary of the crisis I went through at the time. For months, I filmed myself using my mobile phone. At first, I thought I was filming material for use in a future project, but later, I thought I was filming to have evidence. And today, I don’t really know what kind of evidence I was talking about, nor the real reason for filming everything at all times. / Marina Otero
Performers in the video: Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez and Marina Otero
Editing: Laura Basombrío
Production: Mariano de Mendonça
Visual artist: Agustina Comedi
Director: Marina Otero
Duration: 25 minutes
Performances
Friday 23 June, 8 p.m.
Saturday 24 June, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday 25 June, 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Get your ticket here
Week 7
Marathon Edition
Tótem Tabú / Burro [Donkey]
Friday 29 June, 8 p.m.
Gustavo Tarrío / La carta de la estrella [Star Chart]
Friday 30 June, 8 p.m.
José Guerrero / Un grano de polvo suspendido sobre un rayo de sol [A Mote of
Dust Suspended on a Ray of Sunshine]
Saturday 1 July, 4 p.m.
Ernesto Ballesteros / Pequeño espacio de concientización cosmológica [A Small
Space for Cosmological Awareness]
Saturday 1 July, 6:30 p.m.
Marina Otero / Escenas para Kill me [Scenes from Kill Me]
Sunday 2 July, 4 & 6:30 p.m.