Lanzarote: arts and migrations

In parallel with the four layers of reading proposed for literary narrative by the critic and editor Constantino Bértolo, we can think that the understanding of works of art also brings into play different dimensions, from the purely semiotic (which leads us to interpret the meaning of the signs of which the works are composed), to the biographical (which allows us to relate the works to our life experiences), through a meta-artistic dimension (through which we compare the work in question with artistic objects from other schools, periods or trends, according to our knowledge of the discipline in question) to, finally, the dimension that we can call ideological, which makes us look at the work as the result of a socio-political context that explains it and which, in turn, the work tries to explain. Our full understanding of each work thus depends on the approach we take to it from these four perspectives which, presumably, will vary in depth and quality according to each receiver, their previous knowledge of a particular artistic discipline, their life circumstances, etc.

It is not uncommon for one of these dimensions to outweigh the others, so that, in practice, it monopolises the interpretation of the artistic object. The artistic direction of the 11th Lanzarote Biennial (https://bienalartelanzarote.com/) has chosen this path, favouring an approach that links the artistic works presented with social commitment and dissident practices. Specifically, one of the Biennial's main themes is that of migrations. The choice is particularly appropriate, bearing in mind the social impact that migratory flows have on the Canary Islands, which have become the point of arrival of one of the most frequented and dangerous access routes to Europe from Africa. In this context, it seems to us very interesting to investigate the approaches to the phenomenon of migration made by the works selected in the different areas and sections of the Biennial, as they will allow us, once again, to verify the peculiar ways in which the arts seek the meaning of social events from original perspectives.

The Biennial's activities (which began on 1 September and will end on 30 March 2023) that have a direct bearing on migration include exhibitions, talks and performances.

Curated by Carlos Delgado Mayordomo and Adonay Bermúdez, the exhibition "Hidden Goods", (1 September - 7 November at the International Museum of Contemporary Art - Castillo de San José) presents a reflection on the ways in which the relationship between art and politics is configured (with references to current conflicts such as borders and walled states, or migratory pressure), with the aim of showing us "the potential of art to stage the profits generated by the critical and symbolic analysis of the structures of power". This exhibition allows us to get to know the work of artists such as Rigoberto Camacho (Lanzarote, 1985) and others with a longer career, such as Santiago Sierra (Madrid, 1966) and Isidro López-Aparicio (Jaén, 1967), among others.

The exhibition that the Mexican artist Tania Candiani (1974) is presenting at the Biennial is entitled "Los ojos bajo la sombra" (17 November - 31 January at the Museo Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo, MIAC), and its aim is to demonstrate that the migrations derived from trade weave a network capable of changing societies, even the landscape of a territory. The idea was already present in Camouflage (2020), a previous work in which Candiani recreated photographs by Dorothea Lang from 1942 - in which American women of Japanese origin imprisoned in concentration camps wove enormous camouflage nets - to make forced labour visible. On this occasion, the artist invites the women of the Canary Islands to emulate the work of those prisoners, but this time with strips dyed with cochineal grana.

The performance by Carlos Martiel (Havana, 1989) "Mediterráneo", presented in the Cuban pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), shows its author kneeling at the bottom of a kind of hourglass, from whose upper level a trickle of water from the Mediterranean Sea descends and gradually floods the space occupied by the artist (on view at the MIAC from 17 November to 31 January).

Also related to migrations is one of the two pieces presented by the Venezuelan Marco Montiel-Soto (Maracaibo, 1976), whose installation "Paralelismo tropical de la ausencia" combines masks and black maracas, migratory flows and social surrealism, symbolism and mestizo culture (17 November - 20 February, MIAC).

Alongside the artistic presentations, the Biennial has also included the talk by Sami Naïr "On refugees: the Ukrainians and the others", in which the French thinker reflected on the different reception policies of the EU depending on the origin of the refugees (and which took place on 6 October at the Fundación César Manrique, Sala Saramago, in Arrecife).

The 11th Lanzarote Biennial has also explored the artistic treatment of other social issues of undoubted interest (patriarchal violence, historical memory), with the intention of highlighting the connection between social realities and artistic productions that attempt to explain them in other ways (while at the same time they cannot be explained without them).

Luis Guerra, PhD in Philology, is an associate researcher of the INMIGRA3-CM project, financed by the Community of Madrid and the European Social Fund.