Estoy contigo y con este azul que calma, neutraliza tu dolor.
Te envío el canto de los pájaros y la tranquilidad de mi jardín.
Confía en la luz.

I am with you and with this blue that calms your pain.
I am sending you the singing of birds and the tranquility of my garden.
Trust in light.

I think of death,

not as the darkness of an end,

like the point of a cone

but as a transformation,

through a passage

guided by calm breeze.

For all our beloved family and friends

Peaceful death, bright transition and joyful rebirth

Claudia's transformation has given me a different approach to death and I would like to link it with my current artistic context: people's life in underground transport systems, and ways of interaction while listening and remembering.

My interest, in underground transport systems, not mentioned in artistic reviews or presentations, is unconsciously a mourning time. It started in 1984 with the passing of my mum Gina. In 1996 I connected for the first time with this transport system, which I see both as a womb and an artificial underground space that transforms perceptions of time and space of above ground geography and life.

I have selected for my Thesis a myth which I introduced: "One of the Sumerian myths makes the exciting connection between sound and the underworld when Inanna, the goddess of the Great Above, decides to visit her elder sister Ereshkigal, goddess of the Great Below. The first thing Inanna does is to "open her ear" to the underworld:

From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below.
From the Great Above the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below.
From the Great Above Inanna opened her ear to the Great Below.
My Lady abandoned heaven and earth to descend to the underworld.
Inanna abandoned heaven and earth to descend to the underworld.
She abandoned her office of holy priestess to descend to the underworld.
The Descent of Inanna – The Huluppu – Tree (Wolkstein and Kramer, 1983) "

Alarcón, 2007

I link Innana's myth to my feelings with underground transport systems. Something deep, very special, is taking place with humans there, deeply perceived in sound.

I have explored it in London through my own and 24 + commuters' experiences of listening and remembering.

As a woman, some fear exists of admitting this symbolic strength that guides my work. Sometimes, unfortunately, I disconnect from that strength. On spaces like this blog I connect again.

Some feelings...

Commuters temporarily disconnect.
The fear is because of darkness, the fear is death.
The fear is the lack of air.
Infrastructure controls the path.
Sound is strong and recognizable medium.
Staring is a furtive practice.
Listening is a safe link.
Talking is permitted when no one is staring.
Thinking is free! announcements interrupt.
Walking is fast to go in tune
Walking is slow to enrich rhythms
The fear is "a security announcement"
Hope is the destination
Exit is the rebirth
Expression is rebirth
Poetry is rebirth
Listening is rebirth
Singing is rebirth
Writing is rebirth
Talking is rebirth
Reading is a filter

Life and afterlife, always follow the brightest light.

I like to extract the objects, gestures, details present in what is excluded
from the common understanding of beauty.
This flower was probably beautiful in Autumn, or in a time
when it was part of a branch of a tree.
Here it is detached, it doesn't belong to anything but the forgotten.
Snow is caressing her as if she always had belonged to the ground.
The snow extracts her beauty and magic texture.
She was probably not noticeable before next to similar flowers.
Now she's unique, alone, in an alien space, but bright.

Mexico City - waking up

These are the feelings of commuters participating in my project (in Spanish), and also the progress of my work (in english)

I feel really happy of waking up all those feelings within a routine and with the magic of sound:

http://mexicometrosonic.wordpress.com/conexiones/ (spanish)

http://iseproject.tumblr.com/ (english)