«Life is no trivial matter to us»
Interview with Tiziano Cruz
Buenos Aires-based and originating from the Jujuy Province, the interdisciplinary artist Tiziano Cruz (*1988) finds clear words for his work: «When something from the private sphere invades public life, a political act takes place at that very moment.» At this year’s Theater Spektakel, he is present with his latest piece «Soliloquy», a performance linking the story of his mother with his own biography and status as an indigenous artist within the Argentinian society. Cruz refers time and again to his migration from the poor rural areas to the metropolis and tells how that has made him – and countless other people – a stranger in his own country. With this linguistically and atmospherically dense solo piece, the artists appears for the first time in Europe after winning the Biennial of Young Art Argentine 2019 and several national and international awards, such as from the National Institute of Performing Arts Uruguay and the Institute of Culture of Baja California, Mexico. His works are mostly multi-medial and move between performance, theatre and artistic intervention in the public space. The Zurich-based author Anna Froelicher has conducted a virtual interview with Cruz to talk about «Soliloquy» and to explore the question why we are all equal, but some are more equal than others.
Anna Froelicher Your latest piece «Soliloquy» is part of a family trilogy. The first part was about your father, the second about your mother and the third will be about your siblings. What moved you to integrate your family in your art?
Tiziano Cruz I had a sister who, in 2015, died in a public hospital in the north of Argentine – in the province I was born. Cause of death: breach of duty of medical care. She was tortured and then left to die. In the same year, my father led the first march of the feminist collective #niunamenos. My father had never gone on the streets before. But on that day, without knowing the history of the feminist movement in Argentine, he asked the world for justice. I couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. I understood that they would let us die if we (my parents and my siblings) would have to rely on the health system for whatever reason. I also understood that this had to do with the social class we belong to. We were poor, had indigenous features, did not speak correct Spanish. I wrote my first piece in order to save us so that people would recognise us and not simply leave us to die. So someone could say: «This is the father, this is the mother, this is the brother of Tiziano, we cannot let them die». I also understood that this did not only happen to my sister but to hundreds of girls, women and men who are like us: an error in the system. That is why I decided to prostitute myself on the art market, for only there can I not only save myself but also an entire community. I couldn’t help but pointing out that in all these times there had been indigenous communities which no longer exist, and those left are fighting in order to stay.
AF «Soliloquy» is also a piece on invisibilisation. It tells a very specific regional story from the perspective of an artist who comes to the metropolis and suddenly becomes a migrant in his own country. What does visibility mean to you?
TC I often say that it does not matter which place a community inhabits, there will always be people questioning our existence and wanting to take away our place. Regardless if this happens consciously or unconsciously – it remains a robbery. Life in a society striving to be a white nation creates a form of invisibilisation and a hunt for our «non-normal» bodies, which are beyond the logic of the hegemonic desire.
AF How does your body relate to the art world? What has changed for you and in the local art scene since you arrived in Buenos Aires?
TC I have always considered my body a contradiction in itself. A war rages in my body. Yet sometimes, I decide to turn it into a merchandise to feed the hungry stomachs of capitalism. My body – tired, broken, raped time and again – is the food of the market. In a perverse way, this is the only possibility for me or my community to survive – and I say survive, because what we have is no life. We don’t live, we survive.
In the last years, the concept of «progressivism» has caught on in Buenos Aires. It has become fashionable to talk about minorities and dissidences (categories we are almost always assigned to). We don’t need to discuss if this is good or bad. The problem is the centrality, the prevalent hegemony, which dictates how we talk about those «minorities», how we present them and what we say about them. This trend has started mainly in the art scene of the capital and has spread over the entire national art world. They talk about us, but we rarely get the opportunity to tell our story ourselves.
I have been making art for more than a decade and copulate with the market. But I have only started to speak up now, since I have something like a voice. Only recently, I can say where I really come from, from a city named San Francisco in the department Valle Grande in the province of Jujuy. I have always denied my origin because they let us believe that is was not right to be a descendant of the indigenous peoples or to have a certain skin colour. So I always maintained to come from a place further inland. Only since a few years and especially in the work «Soliloquy», can I talk about who I really am; talk about the world in which I had to live – and question it. Only recently, can I talk about the collective memory of those lost and forgotten peoples in the north of Argentina; talk about those mothers who were the mothers of my mother, who preferred at some point in history to drown their children instead of seeing them grow up as slaves of the colonialists.
AF Within the context of your work, you often talk about Aporophobia, the fear of the upper, privileged class of the confrontation with the lower class. Where does that become apparent in your work as an artist?
TC Aporophobia is the fear of poor people. My family is poor. In Argentina, being poor means earning less than the minimum wage. Additionally, there are very few public services and those that exist – such as health, education, politics, let alone art – are not available to us. Poverty in Argentina is often part of the rural regions, whereas wealth is concentrated in the big cities. This is how I confront a world, which, in my eyes, is already broken, because the desire for a better world is persistent. I have left my home; we have left our homes because we wanted a life: That is a big deal for us. You could say that poverty shows in the absence of big scenographies or sophisticated equipment in my work. I would agree to that, yes, but, despite the limited resources we work with, we exhaust all possibilities to the maximum. Many are trying to find ways to hide their poverty. In my case, it is the opposite, I show the poverty; I show the class I represent.
AF Apart from being an artist and performer, you also work as a lecturer and cultural mediator. The foundation of ULMUS, a platform specialised in the mediation between various cultural organisations in Argentina and its neighbouring countries, is just one of your many projects. What connects your various fields of activity?
TC Close to the end of «Soliloquy» I say: «This road is a lonely road, but that does not mean that it is travelled in loneliness». This sentence summarises my life rather well. In the past ten years, I have met people and institutions sharing the same worries, the same wishes, the same enthusiasm and longing for a different world. I was no longer alone, but I had to go out in the world in order to meet those people. This is how I met my friends Tatiana Valdez and Valeria Junquera, with whom I founded the platform ULMUS. Our aim: to create spaces in which people can encounter and meet. This is how I came across the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires, where I am currently responsible for public relations. For the art world and the society, the Recoleta represents a space of legitimation: the presence of my body makes many marginalised people believe that they could also be there. This is fantastic. That’s why I see myself as a kind of mediator, a bridge between the worlds within the social power structures. My participation at FIBA (Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires), which took place for the 15th time this year, is another example showing that another door has opened. A door which has not only opened for me but for hundreds of artists living at the aesthetic and geographic peripheries. This shows that we are here and will be here even if the white society does not want to see us.
Tiziano Cruz performs «Soliloquy» at the Zürcher Theater Spektakel from 23 to 25 August 2022. Further information and tickets
