A One-Second Shield

“An artist acts like a criminal who returns to the scene of the crime, even when that place is a memory.”

A One-Second Shield
Public space action

In this piece I use the act of hugging as a symbol of momentary
protection. Here, the act of hugging represents a shield as if you were
taking a bullet for someone else. Organized crime, and the government
(represented by the police and the military) are carrying on a war in
which people from both sides are dying daily (the “good” side and the
“bad” side, which sometimes mix). Nowadays, this battle is taking place
all over Mexico, and for a number of years this battle has been very
open and common in public, and incidents may take place at any time of
the day and in any place. Civilians may also die if they happen to find
themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.

For this piece I asked police officers to wear bullet-proof vests in
order to more strongly emphasise the protection needed, and wore one
myself during the action. This type of action is meant to be reproduced
in other countries with local police officers, by sociological means. Nahomi Ximenez

Organization: City of Women.

Mexican Woman Looking for Work in Ljubljana
Action taking place during the festival; project presentation Saturday 17th at noon in Cafe Open.

Help me find a job in Ljubljana. This action shows what it means to
wear the shoes of an immigrant who goes to a foreign country, to a
place that is a “stranger” because he/she doesn’t belong there
culturally. I will perform two basic actions that a migrant worker
would do in a foreign country: filling out the paperwork to have a work
permit and working somewhere.
This action is intended to put myself, for a brief moment, in the
position of someone who goes to a place to look for a better life
through work, and the process will register some of the difficulties
that the whole process could present, such as language and legal
obstacles. By doing so, during this process I mean to enter into some
of the feelings of an alien worker; we’ll see the results of such
living research.
Can you work for someone that you can’t understand, and who can’t
understand you either? Is it easy to get a work permit? I want to show
this from the inside. Nahomi Ximenez

Organization: City of Women; In collaboration with: Cafe Open