RUBY RUMIÉ
LA CAIDA | THE FALL
“Perhaps we all have wings on our backs and don't know it.”
- Rómulo Bustos Aguirre
Las preguntas nos rondan hasta transformarse en experiencia.
Este proyecto surge con un accidente. Una paloma es golpeada por un carro cayendo ante mis pies. Veo allí su cuerpo sin vida, y también la mirada indiferente de los transeúntes como si su muerte no fuera real o todo hubiese sido una alucinación. El miedo, la sorpresa, la rabia, me invadieron mientras tomaba su cuerpo tibio para llevármela a mi taller. Tenía que dibujarla hasta atrapar lo esencial y significante de su muerte.
Algo esencial y profundo se perdía con la muerte de aquella paloma. Me pregunté: ¿Qué simboliza en nosotros su caída? ¿Será que algo nuestro también se desprende y cae?
En nuestra sociedad judeo cristiana la paloma representa al Espíritu Santo, e incluso al margen de la fe ella puede manifestarse como símbolo de nuestra conciencia. La caída de la paloma puede ser la metáfora de la corrosión de nuestra propia conciencia, de nuestra esencia más preciada ante la fatiga moral de la sociedad.
Leía en aquel momento a Byung Chul-Han, varios meses antes de la pandemia, y sus reflexiones sobre el estilo de vida acelerado, el consumo compulsivo, la auto-explotación laboral, el agotamiento, se vincularon a la muerte de la paloma como una premonición que detiene el tiempo ordinario. Momentos como el que viví con la muerte de la paloma, al igual que los que atravesamos ahora como humanidad, nos llaman a un tiempo de pausa. Es en ese momento de detención que uno puede observar lo que ocurre alrededor y permitir que las cosas nos toquen. De esta manera empecé a encontrar respuestas a mis sospechas.
Realicé compulsivamente quinientas palomas en tela como si este gesto salvara de la indiferencia y la invisibilidad las cosas que nos tocan profundamente. La fotografié, la pinté y luego las filmé en distintos espacios, uniéndolas con la celebración de pequeñas ceremonias a un taller de poesía. Todo este material, me anunció, como el aullido de un animal antes del terremoto, la pandemia que hoy vivimos.
El arte puede ser premonitorio, es entonces cuando se asemeja a un sismógrafo que permanece atento al movimiento de la vida para percibir y advertir lo que está por suceder. Sin embargo, en una sociedad donde prima la razón, esta facultad de percepción no siempre encuentra receptores.
Es el momento de dejar un testimonio de lo que estamos viviendo y reconocer la lesión que ha dejado la pandemia en el mundo. Nuestras sociedades han comenzado a valorar la compañía del arte. ¿Será entonces que esta herida abierta representa una oportunidad de encontrar una sociedad dispuesta a verse reflejada en el espejo?
CONTACTO PARA MAYOR INFORMACION: María Claudia Eljach ó Liliana Nelson (5)6640561, nhgaleria@gmail.com
The Fall is a project that was conceived over a year before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Back then Ruby Rumié, a Colombian artist , was already feeling the symptoms of a worn out society that was given over to the pursuit of power, devoted to production, consumption and never ending competition.
“Now, as the entire world is confronted with an unprecedented crisis suddenly rings a resonant note. The accelerated life we were all living has been brought to a sudden stop, creating an entirely new context and we all have been thrust into a situation of total uncertainty.”
An unexpected incident led to this project: a startling encounter with a dove that had just been hit by a moving car. Rumié tells us, “I saw her fall. In the face of the indifference of the other bystanders, it was as if her death were not real. At that moment I felt an urgent need to take her to my studio and draw her, to draw her and to draw her as long as her decomposing body allowed me to. That chance encounter awoke in me the need to stand in solidarity with the dead dove. Shocked and overcome by what I witnessed I asked myself: How then could I transform indifference into a symbolic gesture of love?”
The Fall is comprised of many pieces that include a series of 500 dove sculptures made of cloth, as well as videos, photographs, drawings and paintings, that invite us to reflect upon the relationship we humans have with ourselves and nature.
Some writers, long before the pandemic started, were already pondering the growing tide of individualism, a flowering of a kind of narcissism that could be said to be analogous to the self-confinement, the individual lockdown we have been living lately.
One of these writers is the philosopher Byung Chul-Han, who in his book. The Burnout Society, reflects on the main ailments that afflict our society and have their roots in our accelerated life style, exhaustion, failure, apathy and depression that sever our ties to each other, and that undermine our sense of community. In contrast he stresses the need to set aside time dedicated to leisure, silence, creativity and tranquility, all of which make possible encounters with oneself and others.
How then can we banish indifference, emerge from our self-absorption, and be moved by the fall of a dove? How can we come to value other forms of life? The writer, Chantal Maillard, speaks to the power of compassion. She believes compassion connects us because it uncovers what we all have in common: sorrow. She tells of a Hindu poet who was able, through his poetry, to communicate to others the anguish he felt upon seeing ahunter’s arrow piercea bird.
In Rumié’s view: “Poetry dilutes the barriers of the individual that foster indifference and opens a window; it bestows us with the opportunity to encounter ourselves and everything that surrounds us. The language of poetry expands our perception of the world, leading us to expand and connect with other lives. This is why we can, through poetry, through art, find a path to rebuild, to re-experience the connections that apathy has worn away.”
This perception of the power of poetry is why a group of young poets was invitedto take part in the “The Wing that Never Ceases”Workshop directed by the poet Rómulo Bustos Aguirre. Through their poems, written in dialogue with the pieces that constitute this work of art, these young poets can lead viewers to rediscover poetry. This is another way that the project is creating bridges, opening conversations between different disciplines that, when they combine forces, can mutually enrich their own and each other’s scope and perspective
Ruby Rumié was born in Cartagena de Indias, a city of contrasts, considered a one of the top tourist destinations in Colombia. Yet it is, at the same time, a place of extreme poverty and entrenched social inequality. Aware of this dichotomy, Rumié focuses her work on social issues, resorting to all types of artistic expression to make situations such as gentrification, gender violence and social barriers visible; she confronts body image and self presentation, at times by representing the body in structures with volume in the shape of objects, or in large installations where she uses repetition as a platform to protest; she has used photography to erase the class assumptions based on appearances.Her work encompasses painting, sculpture, photography, video and installations.
She has had important exhibits in Colombia, Chile, the United States and France. With the Nohra Haime Gallery in New York and the NH Galeria in Colombia she has exhibited Hálito Divino (Divine Breath) and Tejiendo Calle (Weaving Street). She participated in the First Contemporary Art Biennale in Cartagena de Indias with her work Lugar Común (Common Place). She was awarded the The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Award. Rubie Runie was the recipient of the UN WOMEN TOGETHER AWARD for her anthropological, social and artistic work. Her work has been shown in galleries and museums around the world.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: María Claudia Eljach or Liliana Nelson at nhgaleria@gmail.com
