A Special Operation
50 ink drawings on litmus cardboard, audio
Fifty plants from all over the world talk to us. The plants found a book called Sobrevivencia, which contains instructions on how to survive in nature. It’s a book made for the Cuban Special Operations Military, and there are images of plants in the book. The illustrations however, do not look like plants do in reality. The plants themselves say that they are spectra, but the military is unaware. The plants find the book hilarious—it’s a book made for the emergency, the catastrophe. The plants don’t understand why the military needs to create catastrophes all the time. “Why do they believe we are going to help them?” The plants laugh aloud, they are amused.
Celia Irina González Álvarez, lives and works in Havana and Mexico City, 1985.
PhD Student, department of Social Anthropology, Iberoamericana University, Mexico City / EXHIBITIONS: “Esok” Jakarta Biennale, Indonesia 2021 / “Seguridad, Control, Decisión”, Ángeles Baños Gallery, Badajoz, 2021 / Arco Madrid with Ángeles Baños Gallery / “La otra isla”, Casa Galván, Mexico City, 2019 / “Cross Currents”, Smart Museum of Art and National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, 2019 / “Itinerarios XXV”, Botín Center, Santander, 2019 / Kochi-Muziris Biennale”, Kerala, India, 2018. RESIDENCY PROGRAMS, GRANTS AND AWARDS: Reinbeckhallen Residency Program, Berlin, 2018 / El Ranchito Residency, Matadero Center, Madrid in collaboration with Artista x Artista Residency, Havana, Cuba, 2017 / Botín Foundation Grant for Visual Arts, Santander, Spain, 2017-2018 / Grants & Commissions Program, The Cisnero Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, 2017
Listen to the audio that accompanies the drawings here.
