Masculinity and installation: On Mirna Roldán’s Cuerpos en fuga(Bodies in flight)

Abstract

Artist Mirna Roldán conducted an investigation and produced an installation called “Imaginary Com-munity: bodies in flight,” about the men in her family. On the basis of these materials, I reflect on the link between masculinity and installation. Installation is a way of working with images, but also of thinking about the links between a visual world and a representational world, without combining them. By observing the work of Mirna Roldán, who primarily uses images, I noticed that those ways of inhabiting the world, that male being-there, were inseparable from the spaces, objects and techniques surrounding them. So I think that what was effectively a more or less conscious or explicit juxtaposition (photos, videos, files, texts) reveals a systematic yet implicit cultural assembly, which I try to explore.