A conversation between Daniel Santiago Salguero and Jessica Mitrani
Spoken Portrait Column
Jessica as a performer in María Isabel Rueda’s work Al final del mundo (At the End of the World). 2022
Photo by the artist.
Jessica Mmmmmiiiiiiiittttrrraaannnniii, she uses her mmmmottttheeeeeeer’ss last name
I met Jessica at a María Isabel Rueda[1] performance in Bogotá. which led to a series of virtual and in-person conversations. Interested in her artistic journey, I proposed a set of discussions to delve deeper. As an artist who typically works with photographic portraits, I aim to explore how artists narrate their own stories. I’m interested in what we[2] value and how the artistic process unfolds beyond the institutional setting, in everyday life.
WhatsApp video call conversation New York City – Manizales, Colombia. April 2022
Jessica: We are born into a context where certain expectations are placed upon us. Gender or geography, for example, are pre-existing elements, accidents that shape our identity.
Between modern Barranquilla and contemporary New York (and more)
I am revisiting this text several years after our first virtual conversation, which took place while I was living in Manizales for a year and she was connecting from her apartment in NYC. I spoke with Jessica again later, when I was in New York (February 2023). Our conversation touched on both profound and superficial aspects of life and death. Since then, much has happened, including the recent passing of her father at their home in Chía. (I am writing from Bogotá today, August 21, 2024, while revising and editing this text, and I will share that my own father passed away less than a month ago here in Bogotá. May both rest in peace.)
In our conversation from February 2023, we discussed elements and presence. I refer to it as “superficial” because, although we are not inherently superficial, our interactions can be when time is limited—this reflects how I perceive both her and myself, given our artistic personas that we are[3]. The term “superficial” applies here due to the constrained time we had to delve deeply through WhatsApp messages. However, I’m sure her father’s death was a very significant event for her. While she didn’t elaborate extensively, she mentioned having had a deep relationship with him and that being with him during his final weeks at their cherished country house was particularly meaningful (she had previously told me about her video installation using soil from that place). Ironically, at that moment, she was in Chía, near Bogotá, while I was in New York, where she lives. Today, March 15, 2023, I am writing from Bogotá, having recently returned from NY, aiming to resume and finalize this text adding to these temporal layers, I am now revising and editing this on August 26, 2024.
Jessica grew up between Barranquilla and Bogotá with Jewish roots tracing back to Romania and Turkey. She shared that as a child, she struggled to conform to traditional expectations of femininity, feeling at odds with societal norms of what it meant to be a ‘feminine woman.’ Our conversations naturally began to touch on deeper issues surrounding gender identity and the nuances of gendered language.
Jessica: During that period, we lacked the nuanced vocabulary we now use to define our identities[4]. I began to understand that my family had hoped for a son, a common preference at the time, but I never viewed it as traumatic. Around the age of fourteen, I began reading—always an avid reader—many biographies of women, and I started to discover expansive inner worlds, like a journey of self-discovery through the likes of Virginia Woolf and Lou Andreas-Salomé.
She studied law in Barranquilla. Early in her career, she collaborated with Mónica Gontovnik[5], a poet and performer known for her feminist stance. Coming from a dogmatic upbringing, Jessica described a pivotal moment in her life when she joined a circle of ‘curly-haired’ women—whom she viewed as free-spirited, “dark, and daring. This interaction exposed her to concepts like ‘patriarchy,’ helping her articulate the sexist dynamics she had sensed but couldn’t previously name. She had her first child at twenty-two and her second at twenty-six, and she realized that what she had suspected had a name. Her deepening friendships with these independent, inquisitive women helped define her path. She spoke about a fantastic feminist sisterhood where they aimed to be in the body—to re-cognize[6] themselves. Together, they explored feminist sisterhood through dance theater workshops led by a Cuban choreographer, which Jessica found profoundly cathartic … There was much discussion about the dual roles of women as both creators and destroyers in this creative process. Jessica told me that during this transformative period, filmmaker Pacho Bottía from Barranquilla was adapting an Álvaro Cepeda Samudio[7], story, Juana tenía el cabello de oro (Juana Had Golden Hair), and invited her to contribute on the script. Their collaboration led them to the San Antonio de los Baños film school in Cuba, where they further developed the script and attended a storytelling workshop with Gabriel García Márquez, Gabo[8] titled Cómo contar un cuento (How to Tell a Tale).
Later, she shared with me her transition into art direction, initially as an assistant to filmmaker Pacho Bottía where she learned about every aspect of the pre-production process up to the filming, which took place in Ciénaga. This experience deepened her interest in the relationship between text and image, text and objects (inspiring her to integrate embroidered texts on handkerchiefs within her visual art projects She recalled a pivotal moment when Pacho introduced her to Tod Browning’s film ‘Freaks’, which resonated deeply with her, not only aesthetically but also in identifying with the characters portrayed. In 1999, she submitted a script to Colcultura[9] and produced Rita va al Supermercado (Rita Goes to the Supermarket), collaborating with a talented team from Barranquilla, including Maria Elvira Dieppa, Marco Mojica, and Gustavo Turizo collaborated in the art direction, Álvaro Barrios also visited the set.
She clarified that she never quite saw herself as a director and that even today, she remains reluctant to be confined by any single professional label. Between 1999 and 2002, she pursued an MFA with a concentration in theater direction at The New School (join the program with the actor’s studio). For her thesis, she staged Casa Matriz (Matrix house) by Argentine playwright Diana Raznovich. The play centers on a protagonist who, on her thirtieth birthday, hires a surrogate mother to temporarily satisfy her emotional needs. The daughter/client has the surrogate take on various motherly roles: critical, cold, distant, narcissistic, cruel, sadistic, victimized, indifferent, distressed, guilty, dedicated, controlling, suffocating, and overprotective.
Jessica Mitrani, Traveling Lady, a film with a live performance by Rossy de Palma – Crossing the Line Festival, 2014
Photo by Sasha Arutyunova
She has navigated substantial challenges across various artistic disciplines, including visual arts, theater, and film. The most extensive film project she has undertaken is Traveling Lady, which is 45 minutes long (starring Rossi de Palma!). However, she points out that her interests have never veered towards making feature-length films.
Jessica: this is reflected on the expectation that after creating a short film, one should naturally progress to feature-length projects. However, I am interested in mixing formats, each of my works finds its own medium.
She worked off-off-off-Broadway, where she co-wrote and co-directed Unas históricas otras histéricas (Some Historical, Others Hysterical) in 2004. She also designed the single shoe worn by the play’s narrator, which later inspired her series In a Single Shoe, in which the single shoe became the focal point of various photographs, performances, and videos.
Jessica recalls how she used to feel stressed about the need to commit to a single discipline to be taken seriously. This fact has changed dramatically in recent decades. I’m referring to the need to define ourselves as artists within exclusive fields, especially regarding the expectation that artists must work within one particular discipline which, as Jessica says, until very recently and even today in many contexts, still expects an artist[10] to adhere exclusively to a specific, given language. To give context to readers who may not have experience in the visual arts, it is precisely a fact that contemporary art increasingly blends with other fields, even within traditional forms. Contemporary[11] artists are more aligned with philosophical and aesthetic perspectives rather than tied to specific techniques. This doesn’t diminish the importance of technique; rather, it allows techniques to be incorporated and put into conversation with an artist’s evolving interests.
Jessica: My projects are collages layered with multiple associations. One element of a work often slips into another, creating networks that expand the meaning of her work and significant possibilities. I think we all contain multitudes. Citing Walt Whitman’s famous phrase, ¨I contain multitudes¨ Jessica reflects on how she has come to embrace her multifaceted identity.
One word she often uses is coexistence. Maybe that comes from her experience of being Jewish in a predominantly Catholic country and a woman navigating male-dominated spaces.
Jessica: The outside world always wants to pigeonhole and reduce.
Putting internal identities into dialogue and coexistence is a challenge, and perhaps she believes her true work has been about escaping binaries. How can one be a mother, an artist, a lawyer, queer—so many roles, so many Jessicas?… she reflects.
Someone once told me,“You do whatever you want” (“tu haces lo que te da la gana”) I say: “I am who I want to be” (“Yo soy lo que me da la gana”). Moreover, I have worked constantly to have the psychological freedom to live the life that I want. In the past, I felt a disconnect between desire and duty but today, ‘I desire the duties I have chosen, I want what I have’.
Collaboration and Ouroboros
Jessica defines herself, her work, as a platform for conversations, emphasizing that dialogue is the most important format for her at this moment. My work serves as a platform to create encounters where listening and meaningful exchange with each other can take place. She told me that she is been thinking about transformation for a while now. She has been reading about art and alchemy and is interested in the psychological aspect of alchemy—the idea of transforming elements as a psychological metaphor. “You[12] cannot become or transmute into what you are not,” she says. “You become what you are.” She likes the language of alchemy, its circular and infinite nature. Transformation is not an end in itself but a permanent process. At one point, she dreamed of an enormous Ouroboros, the serpent eating its tail, looming above the skyscrapers of New York.
I asked her about her gender.
Jessica: I’ve been working out with weights to see if my inner butch comes out.
Feminism gave her the vocabulary to articulate things she hadn’t been able to express before. She told me that, for her, discussing feminism means talking about “feminisms” in the plural. It’s a tool—an expansive ideology where all beings fit, including animals, plants, viruses, minerals, and even spirits. Feminism, in her view, is elastic, adaptable to new technologies and emerging needs. It’s a language we can mold and shape.
Latin America as a crossword puzzle[13]
Jessica Mitrani. Video still la Crucigramista (The Crossword), Madre, 2019
Between 2016 and 2019, Jessica directed and did the art direction for ¨A Crucigramista¨ (The Crossword Maker), a television project created and written in collaboration with Paula Parisot, commissioned by the ARTE1 channel in Brazil. The two series, América Invertida (Inverted America) and América Feminizada (Feminized America), showcase the work of over two hundred Latin American artists[14]
“Feminized America” explores creativity and feminine themes in Latin America. The seven videos are organized around archetypal representations of femininity: the virgin, mother, muse, queen, visionary, weaver, and BEING. Through art and guest contributions, these images are questioned and reimagined, creating new associations to challenge and reshape these symbols. The aim is to offer fresh interpretations of history, memory, and the body.
WhatsApp video-call conversation New York City – Chinchiná, Caldas, Col. June, 2022 Connecting with the present. Re-encounter with Colombia.
María Isabel Rueda (MIR) was researching for an exhibition on Gustavo Turizo when she reached out to Jessica to present Rita va al Supermercado (Rita Goes to the Supermarket), as Turizo had been part of the art direction team for the short film. MIR also selected Jessica’s work Tocadxs por la paz (Headpieces for Peace) (2011) for the Regional Caribbean Artists Salon (2017). From there, she included the video in the exhibition Pasado Tiempo Futuro (Past Future Tense): Art in Colombia in the 21st Century at MAMM in 2019.
Through La Usurpadora (MIR’s project platform), Jessica created a commissioned work for the exhibition ¨Universos desdoblados (Unfold universes), part of the 45th National Salon of Artists. The piece consisted of an installation of two videos that end at the same time: Quisiera reencarnar en palmera (I Would Like to Reincarnate in a Palm Tree) (2019) and a fragment of the video Traveling Lady (2014).
Jessica: In the Traveling Lady fragment I say, discover your own hell and paradise, travel beyond your race, religion, and gender…
Jessica mentioned that in recent years she wanted to transcend the identities we are subjected to and move beyond Judeo-Christian frameworks to explore her non-dogmatic, spiritual side through ceremonial encounters with iboga (a psychoactive shrub used in rituals).
Jessica Mitrani, Installation view, I Would Like to Reincarnate in a Palm Tree. 2019
National Salon of Artists, Photo: 45sna
With Quisiera reencarnar en palmera (I Would Like to Reincarnate in a Palm Tree) (2019), she explored the same existential questions, but this time, she focused on defining and embracing the identities that shape her, including the influence of the Caribbean on who she is.
Jessica: The exhibition Soñé que el paisaje me miraba (I Dreamed That the Landscape Was Watching Me) was conceived for MAMBO in 2021 and consisted of a series of videos I recorded at my parents’ house in Chía. The videos were placed on black, fresh soil that I brought from there to the museum. I wanted tactile elements, to have the smell of the earth, and by the end of the exhibition, little plants began to sprout. The videos are a kind of video essay, with some texts projected onto the soil and others overlaid onto the images like postcards (we created an artist book with Arte Dos Gráfico[16], published by MAMBO[17]).
Jessica had been exploring questions around plant cognition, the consciousness of plant life, and how one might visually translate the idea of plant thought.
Conversation via WhatsApp video call, NYC – Bogotá. July 2022.
At the time of this interview, Jessica was installing her video series I Dreamt the Landscape Was Looking at Me at La MaMa Gallery in NYC, an experimental theater space in the East Village. The exhibition opened on May 19 and closed on June 30 of that year.
Jessica Mitrani, Video still, I Dreamed That The Landscape Was Looking At Me. 2021
She expressed her desire for the exhibition to be activated with activities open to the community. The exhibition began with a discussion alongside Eugenio Viola, where they reflected on the ancestral pasts of Manhattan and Bogota. The exhibition concluded with a tropico-dreamlike analytical conversation with art historian Claire Bishop! For the first intervention, Jessica invited Brazilian choreographers from the Chameckilerner collective to perform Resist, a performance that involved marching and moving the pelvis to form each letter of the word “resist,” as if writing it with the hips.
Conversation with Claire Bishop – video installation, Jessica Mitrani, I Dreamed That The Landscape Was Looking At Me La MaMa Gallery NY 2022
Jessica: I decided to schedule the Mother’s Day march as a tribute to artivist Mónica Mayer and her campaign, No to Kidnapped Maternities! The march happened to coincide with the Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. So, we marched from La MaMa gallery to Washington Square Park, celebrating Mother’s Day and the freedom to choose whether or not to become a mother.
Jessica ends the script for the video MADRE from América Feminizada with the following conclusion:
Jessica: ¡Hijo de puta! (Son of a bitch!)
With this simple insult, the binary categories of whore and mother merge, resolving the complex prostitute-madonna dichotomy. So, the next time someone calls you: ¡Hijo de puta! just say: Thank You
Rules For (Women) Travelers, 2021 – Print – Bogota Museum of Modern Art permanent collection
[1] https://kadist.org/people/maria-isabel-rueda/
[2] Original Spanish with a gender perspective: nosotr@s mism@s
[3] Original Spanish with a gender perspective: nosotras
[4] Original Spanish with a gender perspective: nombrar(nes).
[5] http://www.pyriformpress.com/nervelantern/contributors/monica-gontovnik/
[6] Original Spanish verb to know – conocer. To know each other – re -co -no -ser -ce.
[7] https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Cepeda_Samudio
[8] Refers to Gabriel Garcia Márquez (1927 – 2014), Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1982, born in Aracataca, Colombia
[9] The Colombian Institute of Culture (known in Spanish as Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, commonly shortened to Colcultura) was a government agency created on June 10, 1968, to manage cultural heritage and expand its reach through various means, including television programs starting in the 1980s with Inravision and Audiovisuales. The agency was phased out and replaced with the Ministry of Culture in 1997.
[10] Original Spanish with a gender perspective: un(a)
[11] Original Spanish with a gender perspective: contemporáne@
[12] Original Spanish with a gender perspective: Un@
[13] Original Spanish with gender perspective una crucigrama
[14] Original Spanish with a gender perspective: doscient@s artistas latinoamerican@s.
[15] Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín (Museum of Modern Art of Medellin)
[16] Taller Arte Dos Gráfico was founded in 1975 by María Eugenia Niño and Luis Ángel Parra. It boasts a large and renowned collection of artist’s books, graphic projects, and Colombian and Latin American graphic art.
[17] Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá. (Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá.)
