Regina Jose Galindo and Hasan Elahi - Summary and Analyzing Work

Regina José Galindo

Regina's work is main performance based. She takes her feelings of pain and all of her energy towards living in Guatemala and uses that as the basis of her work. Her performances have one foot in the art world and one foot in the political protest world, although one could argue that those are often one in the same. She takes issues such as sex trafficking and abuse towards women and turns them into a living, breathing form of art and protest. Although her work is based in performance, she also knows that people will be documenting her work and sharing it. In that sense, she also creates documentaries regarding current issues around life as a Guatemalan woman.

la sangre del cerdo, 2018

With this performance, Regina stands naked under a bucket of pig's blood, mimicking a similar scene in a popular horror film. In this performance, however, the audience gets to choose whether to pull the rope or not. When they do, not only is Regina covered in pig's blood, but the audience, restricted by the confines of close walls, are inevitably splattered with the same blood they (or the person in their group) chose to subject Regina to.Here, she is documenting many things. The initial overview of her performance is based around misogynistic and racist behavior, more particularly the current events in the US regarding President Trump. She refers to him as a pig, which is where the pig's blood roots its metaphor. In the end, when the rope is pulled, she is essentially covered by the blood of the people who bear the brunt of this brutality. She stands naked, exposed, unable to remove herself from the hate which is poured upon her, everyone watching, but nobody helping. The audience could have rescued her. They could have cleaned her up. But they didn't. This is very indicative of the feelings I get as a woman in the US. Then again, I'm incredibly bias in this aspect, being one who owns a vagina in the US.

Another thing she's documenting is human interaction. Why would someone choose to pull the rope? What does that mean? Is it indicative of the person, or even of the people? These ideas are also found in Marina Abramović's Rhythm 0, 1974. Marina's performance involved her inviting the audience to use any of 72 items upon her in any way they chose. Items ranged from a feather to a loaded gun. In one instance, a viewer pointed the gun directly at her head, point blank.

Both performances ask us to not only review the obvious issues at hand, but to look within and question how and why we got here in the first place. They also invite us to address the issue and make changes, just as an intervention should.

Aún no somos escombros (We Are not Ruins Yet), 2016

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Hasan Elahi

Hasan's work is also performative, but in a different way. The book focuses on his work regarding his Metalife. He's been taking every bit of data about his life and broadcasting it to the world. This is in response to being unintentionally detained as being a terrorist. Both Regina and Hasan are creating things as a reaction to what's happening to them, and to highlight injustices that are going on in our everyday lives. The things they talk about through their work aren't limited to just them; they're things that many people are dealing with.

Looking at his work on his website, he seems to use surveillance videos and CCTV as the primary medium for his work.

Orb, 2013

This is a 72-channel video installation, which displays various CCTV videos set up in a spherical fashion. This seems to indicate the state of our world; we are always watching and being watched. I feel that he is asking us to become more aware of our pervasive surveillance culture.