The Kiss

Born in Madrid in 1971. In 1997 she published the novel "Sinsahara" co-written with Pablo Carbonell (published by Microscopia de Papel); reissued in a pocket edition by Punto de Lectura (Santillana) in 2001. Since 1993 she has collaborated in various Spanish publications (ABC, El Europeo, Interview, El Mundo), and international publications (El Diario, Nueva York; El Espectador, Colombia), writing opinion articles, reports and interviews.

She was co-funder of group mmmm... in 1998. mmmm…'s seemingly disparate projects range from public art installations, participatory urban furniture, activations, reflexive objects, to a computer virus or a social exchange model developed in a website. Projects by mmmm... have been developed or exhibited at the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2003 & 2010-2011), La Casa Encendida (Madrid, 2003, 2004 & 2005), Centro Cultural Conde Duque (Madrid, 2003), Fundación Pilar y Joan Miró (Palma de Mallorca, 2006), Instituto Cervantes (Beijing, 2007), Laboral (Gijón, 2008), Instituto Cervantes (New York, 2008), Matadero (Madrid, 2010), Times Square Alliance (Nueva York, 2011), L'Observatoire de la Ville (Paris, 2012), Guggenheim Lab (New York, 2013), Creative Alliance (Baltimore, 2014), Danish Architecture Center (Copenhaguen, 2016), Shaw (Washington, D.C., 2016), National Library of Australia (Canberra, 2016), RMIT Gallery (Melbourne, 2017) and Arlington Arts Courthouse (Washington, D.C., 2017).

In 2002, mmmm... arranged 100 couples kissing simultaneously throughout the crowds of Madrid's city centre. Noise levels on the streets unexpectedly plummeted during that moment of mass intimacy. They also scattered members of an orchestra that played the same music simultaneously in various streets of Vitoria, Spain in 2009. Pedestrians experienced the music differently depending on which street they walked past, the speed at which they walked, and by which direction they were headed.

They built a life-size car in brick in 2010. It occupied a parking space between two vehicles parked in the street. The three-dimensional, pixelated car was modelled after a modern automobile. The wheels were one-foot-thick, and the car weighed five tons.

In 2011, mmmm... built the Meeting Bowls in Times Square, New York. Temporary and playful urban furniture, the Meeting Bowls were large objects shaped like bowls with seating to accommodate eight people, designed to promote interaction by having those seated inside face one another. Meeting Bowls were social places for gathering, getting to know people and fostering dialogue in small groups. During the time that the Meeting Bowls were in Times Square 20,000,000 pedestrians saw them, and tens of thousands took photographs.

In 2014, mmmm... created a permanent public art project in Baltimore that included three large sculptures that formed the letters BUS. This conceptual sculpture functions as a literal bus stop on South East Street. BUS is made with wood and steel. Each letter stands 14 feet tall and 7 feet wide. The group wanted to create a place for the community to enjoy, interact, and meet while waiting for the bus. The three letters of BUS allow passengers to assume different postures of sitting or standing while waiting for the bus. The S allows passengers to lie back while they wait, and the B provides handicap-accessible shelter from the wind and rain. BUS has become an iconic urban meeting point.

"Human Rabbits" is the last action that mmmm... has carried out. Fifty human rabbits invaded downtown Melbourne last July 28. They walked the streets and laneways of the city scattered or in a herd, wearing big rabbit cardboard-heads on their shoulders. They walked fast, and suddenly stopped from time to time, often looking sideways. This thought-provoking street action was specifically designed to be held in Australia. There, rabbits are viewed negatively as invasive animals that destroy the local ecosystem, but universally rabbits are seen as cute and cuddly animals, and are considered pets in many countries. These contradictory associations, negative and positive, urge us to openly consider, not without a touch of humour, the concepts of immigration, invasion, group and identity.

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