Salon in Gesellschaft | Über Nacht | Darkness
In Ciudad Juárez, one of the border cities between Mexico and the United States, at least 700 women were murdered in the period between 1993 and 2011. The first victim was Alma Chavira Farel. In May 1993, Gladys Janeth Fierro – 12 years old – was kidnapped, raped and murdered. Sagrario Gonzlez, 17, a maquiladora worker, disappeared after leaving work in April 1998. The night is not only a romantic trope. In spaces where necropolitics have been so extreme as in the Mexican border with the US, lives are stripped of their value. The project »Über Nacht« triggered in me the need to express about this problematic in a hotel room. As many of these killings were also perpetuated in small motel rooms. The anonymity and generic character of a hotel room reminds me of the uncanny that is always latent. The supposed unmarked territory that the hotel room represent. The bed sheets that have been used by others. The forgotten Bible hidden in the night-table drawers. The lingering towels. A space of transit. For many, a space of loneliness, of limbo. Maybe the space of exploitative labor, of despair.
A durational performance by Frida Robles in the framework of the Event »Salon in Gesellschaft«. In cooperation with the master program »Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation« at the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Frida Robles is a Mexican artist and curator. She situates her practice within the philosophy of the essay with a focus on site-specificity. Her artistic practice has varied from public art installations to performances to textual work. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
