FADO is pleased to present Barcelona-based artists Carlos Pina and Maria Cosmes in their Toronto premieres. Join us at the Lower Ossington Theatre to experience an evening of performances from two of Spain's most active contemporary art makers.
Pina's current work is primarily concerned with memory, informed by a thoughtful observance that in order to prevent the suffering and war we have already lived through, one must preserve and be conscious of the 'duty of memory' we have to our children. Using the events of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and working with the concepts of amnesia and reminiscence, Pina's work aims to investigate histories of power construction, truth, memory and collective silence. Believing that all historical events, though removed, are relatable of one owns concept of a personal history, Pina's work attempts to slow down or put a stop to the gradual process of forgetfulness we all experience, both individually and as a society, caused by an overabundance of information from the mass media, a society in which the past is discarded in favour of the constant search for the new.
"Duty of memory, crime of silence".
-Federico Mayor Zaragoza (1999): former General Director of UNESCO
We live in societies in which the silence has been imposed, where the impunity has been established under the name of reconciliation, where the amnesia has been promoted so that the powerful do not have to ask for pardon for they did in the past. We are silenced persons, sons and grandchildren of silenced persons, generations plenty of silence. Ignoring the pain that our ancestors have suffered, we live as unknown and incomplete persons; we are, therefore, persons without past for the loss of our historical, family and cultural memory. ~Carlos Pina