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BODIES THAT YIELD, STATES IN DISSOLUTION _2011
Washing one’s hands with a bar of Aleppo soap until it disappears.

2017, March 9-12. Matadero Madrid.

The proposal consists of washing your hands with a bar of Aleppo soap until it disappears. The elements in this game are clear, and now it depends, to a greater or lesser extent, on how far we are willing to go (leave our skin).

Dynamic: A group of people gather around a bucket of water and wash our hands while discussing situations in which we personally or collectively disengage from situations of conflict and injustice.

The activity starts here with words that name and how these begin to affect us. The relation between the title and the content of the work makes direct reference to its formal simplicity and to an aesthetics-politics. 'Bodies that yield, states in dissolution' does not only graphically visualize the proposal being made. With the comma that separates and associates the two actions, the title also designates the relationship that is established with the Aleppo soap bar. The comma of the title embodies the situation that separates and at the same time builds a common area of enunciation for these two actions, such as it occurs in the situation in Syria, where the war is causing the displacement of millions of people and depletes the country’s natural resources.
What is called upon here is not only a physical and symbolic comparison between the action and the war in Syria. It is not about manifesting the contradictions and social and political distances in which they operate. The aim is to produce a democratic space in which dissonant positions overlap. A kind of radical dynamism between art and politics, between culture and nature. Right now the Aleppo soap bar should cancel out any previous representation in its traditional or hygienic function to affirm our participation in changing the world we live in. And as stated so far, the title would give us an opportunity to intervene in what is imaginable, that is, in its sense and temporal projection. For what is attempted with this activity is to make plausible the capacity of an action that confirms that the present is open to be reconfigured.

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