EDEMA performance

This is a video documentation of a performance by EDEMA in collaboration with Carlos Ezequiel Monteros (H.I.J.O.S.) and Pilar Medina (group Contraseña, Monterrey), presented at the second Hemispheric Institute Encuentro in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2001. They got together to expand alliances with groups that work on similar topics: the disappeared people during dictatorships, and the necessity to denounce impunity. EDEMA unveils the trauma of disappeared bodies through the striking the materiality of a body on stage. Sensorial stimuli accompany the bodily presence: sound, noise, percussion, fire, dance are mingled with pictures, videos, and pictures of the disappeared. With this performance, EDEMA points out that forced disappearance is a crime related not only to Latin American dictatorships, but also to democratic governments' responsibilities: 'el silencio es cómplice de la ausencia' (silence is complicit of absence).

Visual and performance artist Ema Villanueva (1975, Mexico City) performs in the streets as well as in established cultural spaces of Mexico. Her at times controversial performance projects, mostly done in collaboration with Eduardo Flores (collective name, EDEMA) include: Todo se vale (strip-tease político) (Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado 'La Esmeralda' 1999); Pasionaria, caminata por la dignidad, street intervention, 2000); Ausencia (Ninth Performance Festival of Ex Teresa, 2000, the Red de Derechos Humanos a Todos Para Todos, and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics of the Americas, 2001); Orgullosamente UNAM (Department of Political and Social Sciences of the UNAM, 2001). Villanueva has participated in several round tables and conferences in art schools around Mexico City. Her work has been reviewed in major newspapers such as Reforma, La Jornada and Milenio, and discussed in academic papers and conference presentations.