Madrid, 1965. PhD in Philosophy and Literature, a master’s degree in Art Theory and aesthetics from the Autonoma University of Madrid, a master’s degree in Architecture from SOA, Princeton. She is the author of El viaje sin distancia (A trip without distance, Cendeac, 2004) and of Violación Nueva York (Rape New York, Lince, 2011). She was the professor of Projects and Advanced Concepts of Art and Architecture at Cooper Union University in New York for seven years. She has exhibited, among other places, in the International Photography Centre of New York, in ARCO and MNCARS in Madrid.
Leo analyses systems. Her work teaches the workings of a pattern and its impact on individuals. Leo documents, with images and texts, the emotional state that takes place parallel to the facts. In 2008 she created the MoSis Foundation, Models and Systems, Art and City.
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A life in which utopia has become reality: corruption is not an element of power. Sexism is not part of culture. Activism is not a marketing strategy. The politicians go by unnoticed instead of being the news. Bureaucratic paperwork is short and simple. Life is real, not a simple technicality. A walk through effective dystopia: in daily life the endless procedures touch on absurdity, it is the violence of the procedure. The poorer one is, the greater the presence and effect of bureaucracy. In the film Oficina (Office) a civil servant speaks . The bureaucrat is a robot that manipulates documents.
The excess of bureaucracy is a symptom of a lack of trust between the Individual and the State. But there is another way, more lethal, in which the relationship citizen/government is distorted: negligence. The video 154 Bofetadas (154 Slaps) could be a demonstration of what each one of the politicians who did not take preventative measures towards the Coronavirus should do to themselves after their resignation.
In front of the immigration office, as ghosts in the night, immigrants line up for a passport or visa: The Queue for immigration . A way of life is understood and taken as a natural way, but its degree of alienation is intolerable.
The State, paternalist with its aid, incapacitates and takes away more than it gives. In Corviale the architecture is magnificent, and the views are spectacular; but the management and services are non-existent for the thousands of people in the building of one kilometre, demonstrating the failure of social housing. In the “Villaggio della Solidarietà”, on Via di Salone, there is no architecture nor view. The State destroyed the unique houses made by the gypsies, moving them to containers in the middle of nowhere. It was to be for six months, but eleven years have gone by since they have been in tin boxes. Life is not just a procedure
Excerpt of the movies in English
Inspired by Machiavelli (if the government is too hard, the governed revolt, if these are too submissive, the corruption of the government is rampant…) my intention is to track, and through a tool of the State (bureaucracy), its paternalism and populism.
Having seen the public offices, such as the civil register and, unseen, I begin to take photographs of their space and to read the feedback of the online users. I try to interview people, but nobody would like to speak of the bureaucracy in Italy. Peter Eisenman said that the people convince themselves that everything is fine. They know it is not like that, but recognize something when it is rotten, it is not a step forward but a punch to one’s self-esteem.
My stay in Rome has a before and an after: a group called Stalker. The fact that for a group of “normal” residents in Rome, bureaucracy doesn’t seem to be a problem, leading me to investigate if it were for the “exceptional”. That is how I got to the civil servant who would like to work more, to the queue of immigration at sunrise to renew the passport and to the gypsy fields that, for a mere bureaucratic matter, a municipal program, they are of contention: containers and gates.
In March the Coronavirus crisis exploded. I live in the confinement due to the pandemic in Rome through Sabrina Sejdovic, who, from the camp nomadi Via de Salone told me through Whatsapp her day to day (they close Caritas/two days without eating/the lawyer friend of Pantxo tries to help/the days with fever/Caritas is re-opened). She draws with her children who don’t go to school. I go through the cupboards of her kitchen, that I already had seen in the film that I had done with her (Salone, una vida de contenedor - Salone, a bin life)… a package of spaghetti, a bag of lentils and another of rice. Nothing else, no oranges, tomatoes, cheese, etc. “Keep on moving forward, Jana, keep on moving forward”, she says on the good days. “I am pregnant, I don’t have work, there is no food, everyone in the camp is the same”, she says on the bad ones. We stop speaking every day when the confinement is lifted, and she can get out to find subsistence.
In November I arrive at Rome, an easy city for the visitor but difficult for the artist/activist. Even so, I have a studio, team, colleagues. After two months of stay and only taking care of my ideas and myself I reached a visionary state. That is how 154 Slaps came about. It isn’t a happy moment, but indeed intense. By random circumstances, it came to me, like a slap, a reminder of one of those limits: aging.
To form part of the Academy with this project is already a critical position, and my daily life is an exercise of modifying the definition of a resident in stay. My attitude towards the stay is not that of taking advantage of it to have a good time, relax and make contacts. By living here, I am moulding the institution. To be, is the largest strength in transformation.
The topic, the relationship between the individual and the state, was important at the time, but was critical in the year 2020 and 2021 with COVID-19. The understanding of the control of the pandemic as a form of cutting freedoms by Trump in the U.S. or by Ayuso in the Community of Madrid, is one example of that. Many have died, I will register the political mistakes and the lack of trust between the individual and the state.