Like an Old Enemy stems from an illustration by the artist relating to the AIDS crisis that was published in the newspaper Nou Barris 9 in 1993 as well as a 1989 photograph about refusing to perform military service. Nine identical heads, one of them in negative in the centre, encapsulate the slogan ‘silence = death’ and displace the one in the middle: any body can occupy any head. This figure reappears at the heart of a graphic and audiovisual installation that triggers a fragmented memory. The proposal reflects on two impositions that marked a generation: the threat of the disease and militarism, mechanisms that controlled the body, sexuality and dissent. Thirty years later, the piece gives a voice to this figure by raising questions about the place that we occupy.
Chuso Ordi is a visual artist working with drawing, animation and cameraless analogue film techniques, developing a hybrid practice that combines graphic language with symbolic narrative, in which drawing acts as a tool for inquiry. His work often originates in personal, political memory archives to create visual narratives about identity, community, existence and dissent. He is interested in popular graphics and community media as spaces for circulating images that set into motion a critical mechanism.
