Shared Bodies

A project by Guadalupe Martinez

With cinematography and post production

by Luciana Freire D'Anunciaçao

Performed by 

Chipo Chipaziwa, Sai Di, Jelena Markovic, Guadalupe Martinez, and Yasmine Whaley-Kalaora

Commissioned for Platforms: We Are Here, Live by the City of Vancouver Public Art Program

from tree to fountain, Or Gallery, Vancouver 2020

from tree to fountain was part of the exhibition Re/search Re/surgence at Or Gallery in Vancouver. Curated by Denise Ryner.

Guadalupe Martinez and Olivia Whetung
Saturday, February 1 — Saturday, March 14, 2020
Reception Friday, January 31, 7-10pm

Artist Talk, Saturday, February 8, 2PM

The artists in Re/search Re/surgence work with knowledge and knowing as embedded in body, memory and land. The image and evocation of water illustrates the way place-based and embodied knowledge can re-emerge into a vital and generative flow following long periods of obscurity, erasure and cover.

Guadalupe Martinez’s installations, projections, printed matter and interventions will reference water as a public fountain and a structural leak to activate her relationship with Or Gallery its past and present environs as sites of research, experimentation, gathering and performance.

Photos below by Dennis Ha

Copies of from tree to fountain artist book are available at Or Gallery Bookstore and via email to guadalupemdc@gmail.com

Martinez also worked with her ongoing collective project, CUERPO who practice engaging radical presence through research, movement and the activation of the body as the centre of knowing and learning. CUERPO presented a series of gallery interventions as well as participatory workshops that explored notions of somatic and spiritual activism during sessions that combine performance art theory, spiritual traditions of meditation and body awareness with principles from therapeutic practices such as person centered expressive arts, authentic movement, Alexander technique and eutony.

Photos below by Dennis Ha

Photos below courtesy of CUERPO participants

CUERPO Workshops

Guadalupe Martinez is offering two movement workshops that are free and open to the public. The workshops will explore notions of somatic and spiritual activism during sessions that combine performance art, spiritual traditions of meditation and body awareness with principles from therapeutic practices such as person cantered expressive arts, authentic movement, Alexander technique and eutony.

The process does not propose a unique objective or result, other than learning ways to explore forms of radical presence, a form of sensorial awareness and embodied research that may transform individual and collective experiences of everyday life.

Thursday, February 13, 3-5pm
Friday, February 14, 3-5pm

All bodies and levels of experience are welcome.
Bring warm comfortable clothes, water and snacks.
The groups will be small: 4 – 8 participants.

Sign up and confirm your registration by emailing your name, contact phone and email to or@orgallery.org with the subject line: CUERPO

CUERPO Performances

Following scores, writing, movement sequences, somatic techniques and embodied inquiry developed during the workshops, CUERPO will present a series of performances to take place in the gallery on the following dates. All performances are at 2pm.

Saturday, February 15
Thursday, February 20
Friday, February 21
Friday, February 28

Thursday, March 5
Friday, March 6
Thursday, March 12
Friday, March 13

Performers: Guadalupe Martinez, Stephanie Bueno, Chipo Chipaziwa, Sai Di, Jelena Markovic, Angelica Poversky, Dalia Shalabi, David Ezra Wang, and Yasmine Whaley-Kalaroa.

Spill: Response, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Vancouver 2019

Curated by Guadalupe Martinez and part of the Spill exhibition at the Belkin (September 3–December 1, 2019), this live research and performance component brings together activists, performance artists and educators whose practices consider relationships between the body, the land and forms of pedagogy that engage with healing, love and sustainability as core to their methodologies. Spill: Response performs an extension of artists Maria Thereza Alves, Nelly César, Anne Riley, Cease Wyss and Guadalupe Martinez’s artistic practices where histories of protection of the land across the Americas may intertwine and be animated in the present. Working with a group of selected students, the artists will present their research and share their knowledge at the Belkin and surrounding locations on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories.

For more details and photos visit: https://belkin.ubc.ca/events/spill-response/
Photos by: Rachel Topham Photography

Public Events

All events take place at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.

Wednesday, October 16 at 2 pm: Performative Talk by Nelly César

Saturday, October 19 at 6 pm: Conversation with Teresa Montoya, Genevieve Robertson and Susan Schuppli

Sunday, October 20 at 6 pm: Conversation with Anne Riley and T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss

Tuesday, October 22 at 4 pm: Performance Intervention with Artists and Students

For the duration of Spill: Response – Embodying Research/Love Actions, the artists will work closely with a group of students from the UBC Departments of Art History, Visual Arts and Theory, Political Science and Forestry. Chipo Chipaziwa, Sai Di, Azul Duque, Sebastián Lozano Cimadevilla, Jelena Markovic, Seoyeon Park, Angelica Poversky, Dalia Shalabi, Devan Stewart, Aerial Sunday-Cardinal, David Wang and Yasmine Whaley-Kalaora will gather in conversations, workshops, leisure time and reading groups where shared research and caring bonds will be nourished.

Guest artists and activists Jay White, Rita Wong, John Preissl and Jim Layden will contribute to the Spill: Response research process with their performative walk, Walk the Line, conceived in 2014 with Spill artist Genevieve Robertson. A visit in support of the Pipeline Watch House and resistance at the Trans Mountain - Burnaby Mountain Pipeline Site.

Triangulation of Desire: Sites to Recover from Loss at VIVA! Art Action, Montreal 2019

Initiated by Patric Lacasse and Alexis Bellavance, VIVA! Art Action was founded in 2006 by six artist-run centres from Greater Montreal to support the production of events dedicated to the presentation and advancement of action art practices and knowledge.

For this edition of VIVA! Martinez presents Site of Loss, a third iteration of her performance-research series Triangulation of Desire an ongoing project that revisits and gives homage to latin american performance artists and practices, situating and investigating their existence and relevance through past, present, and future.

At large, Triangulation of Desire is a research-based artwork that explores the relationship between identity and place locating the body at the center of this interaction. Memory, history, and colonial traditions of erasure are addressed and heled, through deep consideration of how the artist’s body may exist at the core of art history and feminist narratives.

All photos by Christian Bujold

Works cited: Alicia D'Amico and Sara Facio, Cecilia VIcuña, Ana Mendieta, Maria Evelia Marmolejo, Yeni and Nan, Polvo de Gallina Negra de Maris Bustamante and Monica Mayer.