The Revolution of Affection

On the last night of a week-long artist’s residency in Peru, Adriana Ciudad and Isaac Ernesto began a conversation —as two complete strangers— in which they shared intimate and sometimes troubling stories about their mothers. When the night brought the conversation to an end they agreed to continue the conversation via a video correspondence to explore the uncomfortable truths of their personal and family origins. This correspondence ultimately resulted to the video piece called "The Revolution of Affection". It is a four-letter confessional essay that reflects on the hardships of growing up during the Peruvian revolutionary uprising of the 1980s, on mourning a breathing mother, and on facing the dark historical implications that come with being the child of a so-called terrorist and the granddaughter of an optimistic Nazi. It could be said that it is a memory exercise that superimposes two lenses of remembrance (or denial), the political and the affective.

Adriana Ciudad (Lima, Peru 1980)
is a German-Peruvian artist based in Bogotá since 2014. She studied at the UdK – Universität der Künste in Berlin, where she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in 2008. By delving into my own emotional and psychological life, I invite viewers to meditate on themes such as grief, maternity, and rituals. She uses painting, drawing, sound, video, poems and/or installation, depending of the project, to explore these issues via poetic and affective languages.
Her work has been exhibited at BIENALSUR (Buenos Aires), Tegenboschvanvreden (Amsterdam), Crisis Gallery (Lima), La Tertulia Museum (Cali), La Casa del Lago (Mexico City), NC-arte (Bogotá), Y Gallery (New York), SACO (Antofagasta), among others.

Isaac Ernesto (Lima, Peru-1992)
is an experimental artist and researcher. Through the use of various contemporary languages and aesthetics, he carries out autobiographical and testimonial explorations that seek to be reflective exercises on the stories that build us as social subjects within the Peruvian nation. These exercises in the first person open questions about our social, collective and political heritage in a post-conflict armed context; where the stigma for being the son of subversive militants is a reason to be viewed with suspicion or to be excluded from the conversation about the construction of the national history. His work has been exhibited in various countries. He has four individual exhibitions and various participations in film and contemporary art festivals and biennials.