Próspera Pekin

The urban context with its implications, uses and alterations is the departure point from which Carme Nogueira has developed her most recent pieces. PRÓSPERA, co-produced by the MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo, and the Instituto Cervantes to mark the celebration of ‘Spain’s Year’ in China, looks at the uses people make of public and private spaces and how transit areas are constantly given new connotations as a result of individual or collective experience.

Carme Nogueira acts as a mediator between two institutions that have chosen her as the interpreter of a process in which the cultural is influenced by the economic, either because large-scale transnational negotiations are always thus or because of the popular image that is created. Conscious of the mercantile nature of routine international relations, the artist has centred her project on the Chinese bazaar in Vigo known as ‘Próspera’. Choosing a spot opposite the Instituto Cervantes, she set up a distribution point of white Lefties (Zara) t-shirts with the Spanish word próspera written backwards on the inside and its Chinese translation printed on the visible side. Resulting from the experience, the artist, now inside the exhibition room, presents an installation which evokes binomials such as inside / outside, interior / exterior, and Beijing / Vigo, the latter being where the project closes.

The action that took place in front the Instituto Cervantes, had as a result a picture, installed in the facade of the building. It funtions as a "false mirror", that reflects a moment of the action. The t-shirt in the window show the word "próspera" as a translation play.