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The kiss

The Kiss in the Forest

Affect and mutual aid communities of the women spectre

“The Kiss”, project selected from the public open call of Imagina Madrid, Intermediae, Matadero 2018

“The Kiss (imaginations of desire)”, collaboration project, 2018

“The Kiss Maravillas”, Market of Maravillas, Tetuán, financed by Intermediae, Matadero 2019

“The Kiss in times of COVID”, collaboration project, 2020

“Women´s Circle, The KISS HER”, community performance, financed by the HER Festival, 2020

“Women´s Circle The Kiss, Tetuán”, community performance, 2021

“The Kiss” in Latin America, exposition in the Spanish Cultural Center in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; expositio in the Spanish Cultural Center in Managua, Nicaragua. Financed by the AECID, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain, 2021-22

“The Kiss in the Forest”, video creations and performances with dissident groups from the city of Madrid 2021-23. Financed by the Grants to support gender equality in artistic production and creation with community social intervention 2023 of the Instituto de las Mujeres.

“The Kiss” is a project that started in 2018 and so far includes Social Practices in Art, performances and Video-creations to do with the participation of communities of the women specter of affect, mutual aid and feminist and queer militancies.

The proposals that define it describe artistic pratices, generation processes of these collectives, the aims they seek, their interests and above all, the way those that belong to it relate with each other. Migrant women of the district of Tetuán, in Madrid, queer profiles of sexual disidents or feminist women from the Canary Islands, are the social groups that have collaborated from collaboration methodoligies in order to produce the pieces described here.

The Kiss in the Forest

“The Kiss in the Forest” is a project that started in 2019 in collaboration with several queer communities of the city of Madrid. It revolves around a portrait of those who form part of these activist social groups representing the framework of their dissidences and their way of relating established in the network they organize. The title alludes to the idea of being ambushed, hiding in the woods to suprise attack. The metaphor of “being a forest”, created by the French environmental activist Jean-Baptiste Vidalou in the Seventeenth century, explains the idea of resisting in battling territories. Historically, dissident communities escaped to forest areas in order to live in opposition, in order to flee from imposed social government processes and which, according to their understanding, broke away from their own criteria. As opposed to hiding, this would involve being active. To be in ambush would be to live the the territories in dispute, construct in them a community to resist in this way vandalism from the institution. The communities that participate in the “The Kiss in the Forest” are communities of affect, mutual aid, non-normative sexualities, and feminist militancies, anti-racist and queer. The processes opened are interventions in the form of performances of each one of these figures that symbolize their personal resilience, the way in which they activate their places of social and political resistence.

This project was started with a videocreation done between 2019-2021 with the participation of diverse militant figures, individual or collective groups of the city of Madrid of the queer and racial environment. It is integrated by mini-clips that feature performance intervetions of each one of these figures that symbolize their personal resistence, the way in which they activate their dissidences.

In order to improve visualization of the video, KEEP THE PAUSE ❚❚️ BUTTON PRESSED FOR SEVERAL SECONDS SO THE VIDEO UPLOADS  and then click on PLAY ▶ afterwards

This piece was produced in the setting of sex-gender disident communities and activists that Toxic Lesbian carried out in this same time-frame, several productions about urban interventions and protests that were carried out in the city of Madrid:

Dissident Communities: Bolloguerrilla St

The first dissident community that “The Kiss in the Forest” exhibits in June of 2022 is the group of urban art, Bolloguerrilla St. The urban interventions from the fringe that they carry out are generated by lesbians that resort to street artistic creation as a means of protest and visibilization of the problems that affect them. Their activist action is inset in the feeling of belonging to the neighborhood movement and the backing of the women and dissidents that inhabit it.

Portraits of Bolloguerrilla St. carried out in the liberated social center that is self-managed in the district of Carabanchel, Madrid, EKO:

Postpotorras

Las Postpotorras is a women’s collective that is part of what they refer to as transfeminist, folkloric and “mamarracho” activism. They carry out their actions through performance, video and other tools of techno-popular culture as a form of expression, communication and vindication. They also develop academic activity as a framework of analysis on feminisms and lgtbqia+ activism.

Anti-fatphobia activism

Action research piece about anti-fatphobia activism in Spain, produced between 2022 and 2023. It features the militant podcast “Nadie hablará de nosotras” (No one will talk about us) starring Lara and Cris, who define themselves as two fat bitches chattering. They collaborate with Antía Eseuve, a singer-songwriter and musicologist who describes herself as seeking social change through her songs. The material produced includes interviews with other activists of this movement carried out at the conference held in Madrid in 2022 at Eskalera Karakola.

It is composed by feminist and queer activists and collectives from the anti-fatphobia activism movement. Their demands are articulated around bodily dissidence and non-normative resistance that connects with the discomfort of the queer movement’s dissidence in the same sphere.

The protagonists of “Nadie hablará de nosotras” participated in two presentations in Madrid in November and December 2023 within the context of this project, in the auditorium of Santa Petronila and in the Centro de Igualdad Hermanas Mirabal.

Portrait of the protagonists of the anti-fatphobic podcast “Nadie hablará de nosotras”, Lara and Cris.

Video of the action-research process about the protagonists of the podcast “Nadie hablará de nosotras” with the intervention of several activists from the Spanish context.

The Kiss Tetuán

Selected project for the Imagina Madrid 2017 call for projects, Intermediae, Matadero, Madrid City Council.

“The Kiss” (Toxic Lesbian, 2017) is a work of public and cyberfeminist art which cultivates caring and the creation of community in Madrid’s Bellas Vistas neighbourhood as well as the symbolic redefinition of Calle Topete and its (cartographic and emotional) memories. The project is rooted in the participation of local residents and pays particular attention to female residents, in an analogue and virtual community-created project. Taking a feminist perspective, the piece’s foundation is an essential and often overlooked aspect of how human relationships which, at the same time, is symbolically one of being the key drivers of communities: women’s emotional narratives.

This initiative grew out of testimony from female residents in the Bellas Vistas neighbourhood about the problems in the area. Listening to them, they displayed strong convictions about rebuilding the community-based networks which had broken down over time as a way of restoring safety and quality of life in the area. This latent desire is conveyed by the project’s concrete initiatives. Over the course of several months, this collectively created project aims to find a deeper identity to personal relationships among neighbours. ‘The Kiss’ has been conceived to increase the symbolic and aesthetic visibility of these forms of relationship. The wish of the community to take part in this improvement and in the work already done by the neighbourhood associations are key opportunities used in the project’s design.

The methodology chosen is gender-based – generational, intercultural (intersectionality),   focused on the role of women – protagonism and voice; considering critical lessons and working in networks.

Calle Topete, which plays host the greatest concentration of Dominicans anywhere in Europe, could become a symbol for the Tetuán district through values of citizen participation, coexistence and interculturality.

Work of netart

This artistry of this piece lies in its online design, observing intimate relationships of affection, romantic encounters, disaffection, conflict and intimacy from the gender perspective. The work seeks out personal and direct testimony giving a first person account of the hidden core of the description of amorous relationships, love as a laboratory of a new social order. These testimonies uncover personal relationships, nexuses and esteem for others, the emotional memory, encounters, putting a spotlight on all of the symbolically relational aspects of community. The key features of the stories do not display specific identities, they only reveal the internal workings of the social fabric for artistic purposes.

This work of netart is an aesthetic unipersonal experience which revolves iconically around its epicentre in Calle Topete. It is the substance of the communication and mediation that feed the work.

More specifically, it proposes a virtual itinerary through Madrid’s Calle Topete. Upon entering the work, and using the same functions and possibilities traditionally available on Google’s application, visitors control their movements by going forward, turning left or right, or looking upwards. The itinerary only allows visitors to enter and leave via the same street. As they move forward they hear the pre-recorded voices of the local female residents at short intervals. This is the core of the project. Portraits and images from from the memories of the street’s female inhabitants are also projected onto the virtual street.

The virtual tour “El beso” is available for screening in public or private spaces, or to be included in another website under the Creative Commons 3.0 licence (Non-commercial use; No derivatives; Always giving attribution: “El Beso” is a work by Toxic Lesbian, 2018).

The Kiss Topete Street

Intervention in the public space

Since September 22nd until October 13th 2018, the exhibit “El Beso” was displayed over facades, balconies, and the display windows of Topete Street in Madrid, with a selection of the art pieces created by Toxic Lesbian with the collaboration of the neighbors. This entails an intervention in an urban space through the disposition of 20 art pieces made on large scale printed canvas. These pieces are a representative selection of the personal accounts of the set of women of the community who contributed to the project. The intervention portrays, through a feminist perspective, the sometimes invisible aspect of women on the affective memories and their convictions on coexistence, reflecting the feelings they project back on this street of Madrid. To bring about this intervention, Toxic Lesbian coordinated informative and characteristic activities related to the community of the neighborhood, with the purpose of complementing the placement of the art pieces on the street´s facades.

Included at Women at Visual Arts Bienial

The Kiss in Latin America

The community project of “The Kiss” started a tour in 2021 in culture centerrs of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation in Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and started with the one in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic

Project selected by the Imagina Madrid 2017 convocation, Intermediae, Matadero, City Hall of Madrid.

The Kiss continues its tour in Managua, Nicaragua, where it opens with the celebration of the 8th of March of 2022 in the Spanish Cultural Center in this city.

The Kiss of Maravillas

A tribute to the attention of the women´s community of Tetuan

A project financed by Intermediae, Matadero, Madrid 2019

The Maravillas markeplace as a place for intercommunication and dialogue of the community of Tetuan and specifically with women, is the setting of “The Kiss of Maravillas”. The proposal offers continuity to “The Kiss”, produced during 2018 in the Imagina Madrid program, Intermediae, Matadero. As of the community of vicinity for this community project, which in one year collected over 70 testimonies of women who participated in it, with a total of 15 nationalities represented, “The Kiss of Maravillas” started in the heart of this Madrid marketplace. The exposition in this setting, revitalized by its migrant community, gives predominance to 20 women who live in the district using their stories and reflects their values on co-existence. The market houses these 20 canvasses that include the portrait and testimony of each one of these women and their affective memories, at times, made invisible.

Part of “The Kiss of Maravillas” is done with participation of district residents where the debate is constructed as well as the creation of community networks. Inter-culture, feminist perspective, listening are the values of this collaborative project carried out from the 14th of December of 2019 till the 7th of January of 2020.

The Kiss during COVID times

How to confront the current situation? Which are the points of view of the women´s community in Tetuán about what is happening? The Kiss holds a dialogue via video-conference with Safe, María, Dolquisa, Jeisy, Lola, Carmen, Jara, Carolina and Farides about the values at stake today. Women of diverse origins and ages share their experiences and reflections. As they speak they weave the network of affects, emotional references that guide us in the multiple situations we were not ready for. This is their testimony. A different approach to the social crisis of COVID-19.

The Kiss (Imaginaries of desire)

This work of netart is a visual, sound and symbolic representation of fields of female desire that are currently under-represented despite their great relevance. It explores the experiences of women as individuals or in groups, transgressing with their actions the expectations conventionally made of their bodies. Using the direct testimony from the participating women, it raises the visibility of spectra that question what was intended to be their sensitivity and natural stimuli. The work is based on stories of women from socially restricted environments and aims to disseminate an imaginary of their authentic, diverse and profound desire. BDSM practices from a feminist perspective, polyamor or mature women’s sexual practices and desire are the contexts chosen for the participatory debates depicted in the work.

This digital work of netart was created through multidisciplinary collaborative processes that are characteristic of public art from a feminist perspective. It is composed of two elements: first, a web backdrop consisting of an animated audiovisual video created specifically for the project; and, second, a semi-open space of dialogue containing three successive debates. The first element is, visually, a video creation of about 3 minutes. It shows a succession of images that evoke an interiorised experience of emotion about desire. In a non-narrative and figurative way, through visual and auditory reconstruction of symbols taken both from nature (detail of trees, creation of visual textures with these elements) and from live recordings of collaborative groups of women (fragments of parts of the body in the abstract or moving shots), it creates a backdrop for the second element. It, in turn, is a window connected to the Telegram social network and showing a chat between several women and restricted to them only. The window shows their conversations in each of the scenarios. From the interface, internet users follow the invited group’s discussions in real time as the work was being produced, as well as in deferred time at its conclusion. The final content of the whole dialogue process remains in the web’s chat window, becoming part of the work. Moreover, the digital site’s audio was created live using two participants in the collaborative project.

To create this work, Toxic Lesbian participated for several months, observing real and operative chats among interlocutors from feminist and social research groups on new forms of relationship between women.

Performances of the Women´s Circle of The Kiss

The “Women´s Circcle of The Kiss” is the gathering of 12 women around themes that concern them and which are undertaken from a gender perspective. It is carried out as a dialogue performance with feminist creation methodologies. The group chosen for each occasion forms a message articulated from diversity of representation that each one of them means. The action is transmitted live by “streaming”.

The “Women´s Circle of The Kiss” alludes to the tradition of gathering which women have carried out through out history and which has been pejoratively treated by patriarchy with names such as “chicken coop”, “witch gatherings” or “tea gatherings”, with their importance being diminished in their upholding ot social balance. The title of “The Kiss” is the name of the project of Toxic Lesbian, which, since 2018 makes evident the existence of these nodes of reflection, true places for maturation of affects and the needs for care contextualized in each place and moment by thie local communities of women all over the world.

Women´s Circule of The Kiss -Tetuán

In 2018 the women´s community of “The Kiss in Tetuán” is created for the development of the work Social Practices in Art in this district of Madrid. The community is consolidated in 2019 with the continuation of the project in “The Kiss Maravillas” and during 2020 they are gathered because of the situation experienced in the district because of COVID. In 2021 the “Women`s Circle The Kiss in Tetuán” is created that reflects the value:

Women´s Circle of The Kiss-HER

When the celebration was done of the HER Festival 2020 cbased in the Canary Islands, this festival which is multi-discipline, transversal and inclusive, invites Toxic Lesbian to produce with the feminist community of the islands, a collaborative work that is centered in a “Women´s Circle of The Kiss”.