Corps roca
Ileana approached Corps roca as a laboratory of explorations, in collaboration with Raphaelle de Groot (mentor). Her interest in the idea of camouflage led her to explore the territory of Laval by bicycle and on foot, paying special attention to the urban landscape, spatial planning strategies, and its characteristic features. Hernandez also looked for ways to develop contact points with the local community as a way to open her process to various forms of participation. This led her to attend a rehearsal by the Chœur de Laval. From her observations of the urban landscape and this listening experience, a fictional narrative took shape. In it, an enigmatic voice questions the “unfair and unwarranted” relationship that the “soft species”—or human being—has with the natural environment. This voice could well be that of nature expressing itself through a rock, imagined as the most evolved species on the planet. According to this rock, the “right frequency” to achieve “harmony” exists here.
Driven by the desire to embody this evolved species, Ileana created a costume that would allow her to blend in with the natural environment of a vacant lot, called Cité des roches.
An important part of her residency-lab was devoted to the project’s relational aspect, wherein the artist collaborated with choir members from the Laval community in a series of workshops aimed at using the voice as a channel of communication and encounter.
List of books that were influential to the artist over the course of her project:
— Isaac Asimov, La pierre parlante et autres nouvelles, 1998.
— Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, La mirada del jaguar : introducción al perspectivismo amerindio, Buenos Aires, 2013.
— Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Exchanging Perspectives: The Transformation of Objects into Subjects in Amerindian Ontologies. Common Knowledge, Volume 10, Issue 3, Automme 2004, pp. 463-484 (Article)
