This project is an allegory to a Ray Bradbury chronicle or a Chris Maker film.
The trigger for ALL I HAVE IS A RIVER is The opportunity that arises after tiredness: a performative writing exercise inspired by a visual research and archival collection conducted by Alessandra Santiesteban since her arrival in Spain in 2018.
The starting point is a huge collection of postcards sent from Cuba (between 1960-1990) to family and friends in Europe and the United States. Many of these postcards contain images (with a strong ideological political message) that reflect moments (social, cultural, economic) linked to the revolution and its process. In addition, they are accompanied by personal and intimate texts that today have also become witnesses of a political system and a utopian and failed era.
For a long time, Alessandra handled these images in solitude, caressed them, sniffed them, and created infinite stories. She discovered how this time in solitude was able to open alternative narratives that, starting from understanding the craft: the search and compilation of postcards as a practice, conformed a methodology to create new re-readings of the past and establish links with the present and the future. All this through the crossing of poetic fiction with the life stories of the people who wrote them.
«The opportunity that arises after tiredness» is the proposal of a journey where, through diverse materials such as paper, images, ink, calligraphy, postage stamps…, a space can be built in constant movement that serves as a pretext to explore and share these new stories. As well as exploring other formats such as performance, installation, performative lecture, visual arts and film.
Rivers open valleys.
Rivers erode rocks and sediments.
Rivers are 3.5% of the planet’s water…