A Performance Workshop by Elvira Santamaría and Eugenia Vargas Pereira
Arrastrando un Cuerpo (Dragging a Body) performance by Elvira Santamaría and Eugenia Vargas-Pereira, Mexico City, 1995. Documentation by Víctor Martínez.
The workshop Dragging a Body (Arrastrando un cuerpo), presented at Ex Teresa Arte Actual and coordinated by Elvira Santamaría and Eugenia Vargas Pereira, positioned itself as an act of critical archive activation, not as a relic, but as a catalyst for active presence and shared responsibility. More than a historical review of an iconic work of action art in Mexico, the experience aimed to push the boundaries of artistic discourse, exposing its tendency toward self-referential enclosure and its detachment from pressing realities. The workshop proposed an ethics: to understand freedom not as an individual privilege, but as a collective demand, rooted in active empathy and the generational transmission of knowledge, as a political gesture. The work, originally shaped by the impact of black and white Holocaust imagery, takes on renewed meaning today, 90 years after that atrocity and 30 years after its creation in a context where those once marked as victims become agents of extermination. Dragging a Body does not illustrate or represent its confrontation. It reveals in us the capacity to generate violence, but also the radical possibility of rejecting all divisive identities in favor of a lucid, committed response to history.
It is crucial to note that these two artistic figures, through their workshop, inherited the knowledge of their performance experiences and shared this inheritance with the next generation of artists. In this sense, the activation of the archive acquires a dual significance: not only because the themes addressed remain as relevant today as they were in 1995, but also because the generational sharing of knowledge is a political act. By utilizing the archive as a tool of possibility, this process facilitates the sharing of experiences and words, as well as the activation of artistic genealogies.
Arrastrando un Cuerpo (Dragging a Body) performance by Elvira Santamaría and Eugenia Vargas-Pereira, Mexico City, 1995. Documentation by Víctor Martínez.
The workshop served as a point of convergence for participants who explored the history of Dragging a Body, a radical intervention performed in 1995 that continues to resonate as a pivotal action within Mexico’s performance landscape. At that time, Elvira Santamaría dragged the naked body of Eugenia Vargas-Pereira, covered with a white sheet, from Ex Teresa Arte Actual to the Zócalo, the symbolic heart of Mexico City. This act, marked by palpable vulnerability, challenged the conventions of art by positioning the body as a site of resistance, memory, and extreme fragility in the face of the indifference and violence of a hostile political and social environment.
The Zócalo has long been a space of confrontation and resistance, witnessing struggles, protests, and sacrifices, as well as powerful narratives of oppression and resilience. From pre-Hispanic cultures to the present day, this place has been marked by the history of those whom the structures of power have invisibilized. In this context, Dragging a Body underscores the crucial role of the body as a vehicle for denunciation, shedding light on the tensions between the individual and the system, between the human and the political, and between vulnerability and control. This performance not only activated a historical piece but also questioned the present: How do the structures of power continue to violate and fragment the integrity of our bodies today?
Photographs by: Raúl Sánchez, workshop participant
Three decades after its creation, the workshop offered a platform to explore the implications of this work in the contemporary context. Participants had the opportunity to experience the transformative power of action art in public space, questioning how the body, in its fragility and resistance, remains a vital tool for making visible the political and social struggles that cross our lives.
Image courtesy of X-Teresa. Photo by Javier Cruz Galván.
The conversation, titled “Performance in Public Spaces,” brought together Elidé Soberanis, Katia Tirado, Víctor Martínez, Eugenia Vargas-Pereira, and Elvira Santamaría, who discussed the symbolic, social, and political dimensions of performance in public spaces. In this dialogue, the body was recognized as a space of resistance, where the intimate intersects with the political, the personal with the collective. The conversation made it clear that performance is not only an act of artistic creation but a powerful form of resistance that faces the structures of power by making the body visible as a battleground.
On Saturday, June 14, the workshop participants performed actions in the vicinity of Ex Teresa Arte Actual, utilizing their bodies as a medium for collective expression and a vehicle for connecting with the urban space of Mexico City’s Historic Center. These actions were not only a reactivation of the critical memory of Dragging a Body but also a space to redraw the present and explore how action art can reconfigure the city and society, generating reflection and transforming the immediate environment.
Eugenia Vargas Pereira and Elvira Santamaría
Elvira Santamaría-Torres was born in 1967 in Mexico City and is a pivotal figure in performance art, with an international career spanning museums, festivals, and public spaces across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Since the early 1990s, her work has explored political violence, resilience, and memory through performative action. She holds a Master’s degree in Visual Arts from the University of Ulster, Belfast, and has been a member of the Black Market International collective since 2000. Notable performances include Donation for an Igneous Force, Labour Trilogy, and Macuilli Tlahuilli, which redefine the relationship between body, time, and space. She has curated and organized significant events, including the Mexico-Japan Performance Art Exchange and the International Performance Art Encounter in Yucatán. Her work is part of Mexico’s National System of Art Creators (FONCA) and Flax Art Studios in Belfast. Santamaría has exhibited at Museo Universitario del Chopo, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, the National Gallery of Jamaica, and Poland’s Interakcje Festival. She won First Prize at Ex Teresa’s 3rd Performance Art Competition in 1994 and was nominated for the Artraker Award in London in 2013.
Eugenia Vargas-Pereira was born in 1949 in Chillán, Chile. She is a pioneering artist whose practice spans photography, performance, and installation, rooted in feminist critique and political resistance. She lives and works between Santiago, Chile, and Tucson, Arizona. Vargas-Pereira’s work has been shown at prestigious institutions including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Venice Biennale (2003), and the Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University. Recent exhibitions include the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Santiago, 2024), the Centro de la Imagen (Mexico City, 2023), and the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos (Santiago, 2022). Her practice addresses themes of power, violence, gender, and collective memory, positioning the female body as a site of both denunciation and transformation. Her work is included in notable collections such as the Ludwig Forum in Germany, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the University Art Museum at California State University. Vargas-Pereira has also exhibited at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and numerous biennials and museums worldwide, establishing a career that demands to be both seen and confronted.
This workshop not only revisited a historical work but also activated a contemporary dialogue about the body, art, and resistance. It invites us to reflect on the future of performance in Mexico and, more importantly, on the transformative power of the body as a tool that continues to fight against the structures that oppress us.
Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Lic. Verdad 8, Historic Center, Mexico City.
