The Body as an Archive: Ephemerality and Permanence in Space,

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Published: 2025-09-30
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21134/vb5f5b08
Keywords:
Body, Space, Footprint, Performance, Graphics, Memory

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Elena Pastor
Independent Researcher, SP.

Abstract

The body and space maintain a symbiotic relationship that manifests through traces, vestiges, and memory. In the artistic realm, performance allows for an exploration of how the body transforms space and, in turn, how space shapes the perception of the body. This essay examines the intersection between both disciplines—performative action and graphic languages—analyzing the body's ability to inscribe itself into the environment and generate new visual narratives. Through the Cuerpo-Espacio-Espacio-Cuerpo project, the essay reflects on the trace as a record of presence and how graphic processes can materialize the ephemeral. Drawing inspiration from artists such as Ana Mendieta, it explores the act of inscribing the body into space as a gesture of resistance. Finally, it presents a working methodology based on performative action and its translation into graphic languages, establishing a dialogue between time, memory, and bodily inscription in contemporary art.

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Article Details

Issue

No. 2 (2025): RAW MATTER. Artistic researchs and discourses on the states of matter: liquid, solid, ephemeral, immaterial

Section

MONOGRÁFICO
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Author Biography

Elena Pastor, Independent Researcher, SP.

(she) Elena Pastor is an artist and researcher, a PhD student at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche. She develops her practice between performance and expanded graphics. Her research starts with the body as a tool, support and archive, investigating how it dialogues with space and transforms it. With her work she explores issues of identity, memory and self-knowledge, linking the personal with critical reflections on contemporary art.

How to Cite

Pastor, E. (2025). The Body as an Archive: Ephemerality and Permanence in Space,. ReCIA - Journal of the Arts Research Centre , 2, 189-206. https://doi.org/10.21134/vb5f5b08

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