FEMALE FLICKERS

The installation revolves around the story of avisadoras, female messengers who flashed messages with a vanity mirror across the border between Mexico and the USA during the Mexican Revolution (1910-17). Most of the avisos were daily life communication, but also warnings, for example, to inform of the approach of the early border patrol.

Avisadores were usually men, but while researching the archive of W.D Smithers at the Ransom Center in Austin, TX., I came across an image referring to female avisadoras. Departing from this finding, I created a setting where avisadoras meet with other female figures marked by struggle and different communication strategies during times of conflict, mostly in remote landscapes, like women who fought in the Mexican Revolution. Their activities and gestures are embodied in the work through tools and structures that liberate and constrain their activities, like a teleprompter, bullet belts, and a telegraph. Such is the installation's structure, inspired by a Dutch optical telegraph model from the Rijksmuseum used to send coded messages over long distances.

^{Still Female Flickers}