Biography

Miguel Peñaranda is a Spanish visual artist based in Brussels whose work straddles Belgium and Spain. He holds a degree in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Córdoba (Spain) and a degree in Visual Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (Belgium).
His multidisciplinary practice utilises textile manipulation, writing, installation and performance as its primary forms of expression.

A central question underpins his work: in what ways does structural, systemic violence manifest itself in our lives as citizens and inhabitants of this contemporary Western society?

Building on this question, he explores themes such as agency, the tension between conflict and action, and our perception of our personal, spatial and temporal relationship both with ourselves and with that which surrounds and shapes us.
Through his practice, Miguel Peñaranda creates spaces of re-enchantment, of heightened presence and of critical engagement with the challenges of a present governed by countless speculative interests.

Artistic project

I have my bust covered in plaster bandages. The audience are then invited to create a portrait on it by sticking on a collage of headlines and subheadings from current local and national newspapers. 
This performance highlights the influence that media discourse has on our bodies. The participatory act of collective writing on an unknown body invites us to speculate on a new re-manipulation of language, thereby emphasising how language, as public discourse, is imposed upon us, trapping us in narratives that fuel fear and antagonism, and depriving us of our capacity to shape the present and the future.
This re-manipulation of language by the audience is a way of stripping the media-driven word of its usual usage in order to endow it with a renewed and imaginative metaphorical power.

Format: participatory performance 

Size of audience: no limits

Specific location: outdoor public spaces

Timing/duration: 2 hours