Itinerario Trans*-An Exhibit that Explores the Body and Trans Identity
The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MADC), located in the Centro Nacional de la Cultura, in San José, Costa Rica is showing the exhibition, “Trans* Itinerary.”
The exposition is based on the artistic, academic and personal research by the artist Emma Segura. The exhibit opened on December 8 with support of MADC 2022 Contest Funds and will be open to the public through February 11th.
“Confronting the work of Emma Segura implies undoing certain forms of gaze and behavior,”
Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo (MADC)
“Itinerario Trans* is an exhibition made up of extensions of my body from soft sculptures, charcoal drawings, author portraits and the sound intervention with my own voice,” describes Segura.
Curated by José Daniel Picado Garcia and Fernando Chaves Spinach, Itinerario Trans* positions the exploration of the body and trans* identity from an autobiographical perspective, “as part of a process of politicization of the private, while in search for the creation of a Trans* Collective Memory.”
Segura infuses her work with a transfeminist perspective, “destabilizing the normative hegemonic parameters and demystifying the naturalness of the body and identity.”
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— Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud (@MCJ_CR) February 2, 2023
Visitors to the exhibition find a space inhabited by extensions of the artist’s body, created from soft sculptures, charcoal drawings, portraits and sound interventions.
Reflections by Emma Segura
Instagram, Teatro Nacional Costa Rica
April 29, 2022
“My childhood memories are often loaded with references to creatures and characters that somehow allowed me to recognize myself and at the same time feel absolute rejection. What does it mean to grow up without any type of reference that allows you to build your imaginary world from a notion of belonging?
I believe in the act of naming. The word and the image build reality and allow us to expand those imaginary and real territories that are part of our lives. I cannot assume this recognition of my work from any place other than, as Camila Sosa would say, ‘the fury and the party of being trans.*’
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“Giving thanks for a road traveled, however short or long it may be, is probably the expected place. You have to have courage to be a butterfly, you have to have courage to name things as they should be and also, you have to have courage to give a twist, even a few degrees, to the story that has always wanted to be told. I don’t know if the world is truly a better place, I don’t know how much is enough or necessary to change it, but I must say that with everything, I deeply appreciate this moment.
I am not a resentful person, I am a person who believes that they have lost their fear and who is absolutely convinced that silence cannot rule our lives. How many people go their entire lives without ever having a space to really say what they feel? I thank the sworn persons, the Ministry of Culture and Youth and the Museum of Costa Rican Art,” Emma Segura.
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“I thank my mother Nancy, for having taught me that you don’t always have to be the strongest to have the right to exist, for giving me her hand and, even if we were both cold, not letting go. I thank my sisters, my friends, and my brother for hugging me. I thank my nieces and nephews for loving me without any conditions on me. I thank my grandfather José María and my grandmother Daisy for her love, for placing that first thread in childhood, which at the time of the needle, settled in my imagination,” Emma Segura.
Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo
An Introduction to Itinerario Trans* by MADC
Confronting the work of Emma Segura implies undoing certain forms of gaze and behavior.
“Historically, trans* identities have not been present in the museum space, therefore, ways of occupying it have to be invented somehow. On this occasion, Segura does it through what she calls “extensions of her body;” a set made up of a series of soft sculptures made with textiles, synthetic hair and dyed with natural dyes that change over time, as well as a series of exercises carried out with charcoal and sound interventions. Everything is subject to the transit of time and corporeality.
With Trans* Itinerary, the artist raises the possibility of “showing my [her] body and identity in the public space from a trans* approach” in a way that “gets away from the stigma and exclusion that has been built around our bodies and identities and that is still present in the social imaginary.”
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“This is an opportunity for the artist to state her identity from her own voice, and on her own terms. Her voice and her drawings fill the room with her presence, with her autonomy; they make a self-portrait of an artist that hides and reveals what she wants. Thus, she confidently expresses: “I, who have the opportunity right now, I am going to use this space and I am going to speak.”
As a project, Trans* Itinerary arises from an extensive research process that links the theoretical and the practical; with which some facets of this artistic work are explored, which addresses individual identity to overflow to a claim for listening and presence: here is a broad, diverse, powerful trans* life.
With Trans* Itinerary, Segura invites us to question and reflect on the dominant systems in our societies, certain political, social and cultural orders, and even on concepts such as identity, the body, heteronormativity, heterosexuality and the sex-gender binary. At the same time, she raises a crucial question: How do we build our relationship with the body, gender and identity, in this context, from the trans, *” MADC.
*** “The word trans * with an asterisk is used as a term that refers to the plurality of trans * identities. The asterisk allows trans* people to self-identify and define themselves, that is, to be the authors of their own categorization.” -Emma Segura
Biography
Source: MADC
Emma Segura Calderón, Costa Rica (1994), is a visual artist and textile and clothing designer. She graduated summa cum laude in Art and Visual Communication with an emphasis in Textiles from the Universidad Nacional. She graduated as Técnica Especializada en Diseño de Modas by the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje y Producción Gráfica by the Byte Centro de Estudios. She is the winner of the Francisco Amighetti 2021 National Prize for Culture in Visual Arts, in the Three-Dimensional category, for her individual exhibition, El tránsito de la Corporalidad es Inmanente, in the Galería Joven Creación of the Alianza Francesa. In 2020 she took part in the Colectivo en Fuga, in the process of direction and collective conceptualization of the Videoarte Tálamo, first place in the Festival Internacional de Cine de Veracruz, in the category, Corto Experimental. She is part of the selection of Central American artists of the Brazilian project, Artistas Latinas. She is cofounder of the Red de Bordadorxs Feministas Latinoamericana: Desbordando Feminismos. Her work has been presented in: El Salvador, Republica Dominicana, Bolivia, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and the United States.
The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design was founded in 1994. MADC has four exhibit galleries and an exterior exhibit space. Since its founding, MADC has carried out a great quantity of individual and collective exhibits by national and international artists. One of the principal objectives is to exhibit artists and curatorial visions related with aesthetic, cultural and social issues that affect the Central American region and the world. Equally, the museum promotes the implementation of art competitions, and supports video-creation shows, digital art, emerging artists, among others, that contribute to the visibility and legitimize the most recent tendencies within contemporary art and design in the Central American region.
To learn more, visit:
Museo De Arte Y Diseño Contemporáneo, Itinerario Trans*
Emma Segura, @disidenteadisidenta
Dr. Soledad Quartucci | Founder
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