Tra[Di(c)ción]/ Tra(ns) [Di(c)tion]*

*The title of this works plays formally with a variety of concepts, like translation, transcription, diction and tradition, part of them are lost in translation.
Fernanda Barreto and Ricardo Cárdenas
January-April 2016

Artistic research about the figure of the public notary or scribe; the work was developed at the Plaza de Santo Domingo at the Historical Downtown of Mexico City. The collaboration with the scribes consisted on a series of writing exercises: transcriptions, translations, reconfiguration of documents, etc. What are the current relations between orality and written language, which empathic bonds are activated between individuals through written language and dialogue, what tensions does the figure of the author suffer along this collaborative process produced by the relation between the scribe and his “client”?

These documents conformed a new archive in the shape of a publication that reconfigures the dynamic, non-lineal and subjective memory of collaborative writing through different ways of personal bonding between the artists, various collaborators and the scribes.

Fernanda Barreto
São Paulo, Brazil, 1988. Currently living in Mexico City.

Her research is developed in urban contexts, spaces of encounter and relation. Her most recent projects are of collaborative nature and social bonding with specific communities. She graduated from Visual Arts from the Fundación Armando Alvares Penteado (FAAP, SP) in 2009, and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Centro Universitário Belas Artes, SP, in 2011. She lived two years in Buenos Aires (2012/13) where she worked as agent at the Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (CIA) in 2012. She attended the educative program at SOMA in 2013/14.

Ricardo Cárdenas
Mexico City, 1981.

His artistic production is developed from reflexions and questions related to the construction of memory, forgetfulnes and the archive when linked to contexts and specific socio-political situations. He graduated form the Escuela Activa de Fotografía and holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, UNAM. He attended the educative program at SOMA in 2013/14.