Helena Martin-FrancoAn Elephant in the Room

During her residency, An Elephant in the Room, Helena Martin-Franco will focus on the creation of a series of short video performances and on the development of new representations of her character the elephant woman from her on-camera incarnation. The elephant woman is inspired by the Spanish expression “tener el moco en el suelo,” which literally translates as “having your trunk on the floor”. It expresses a state of sorrow. For the elephant, this feeling takes the form of being spited in love, a state that is called “despecho” in Spanish, and which refers to a period of withdrawal from the beloved, an abandonment of the object of desire, of an illusion. This feeling is used as a starting point to investigate three universes: a woman who questions gender roles and gender within the couple, an immigrant who is melancholic about the fragility of authentic intercultural encounters, and an artist who is revolted by the seductive mechanisms of artistic discourses that are sometimes too smooth and homogeneous. Her research addresses themes of decolonizing the body: the border body, the female body, the feminist body.