Spiritual Boyfriends by Núria Guiu Exhibition and performance
What rules and power roles do we impose on our bodies through the culture of self-discipline, self-care and self-healing as a bodily regime?
Spiritual Boyfriends is a solo/performance about relationships and power structures. The work is based on iconographic research on the historical construction of yoga postures, as well as autobiographical material on affection and desire.
Núria Guiu created the piece Spiritual Boyfriends in parallel to her research and realization of a work of visual anthropology; it is a photographic archive of the iconography of yoga and its historical construction. This archive is mostly made up of images floating around in the virtual world. The images are poor*, pixelated, compressed, sometimes discontinued; others are copied and re-appropriated by digital diaries, users’ personal blogs, schools or commercial and merchandising companies focused on yoga, its accessories, and the body as a culture of therapy, health, sport, fashion, spirituality or merchandise. This photographic research was inspired by theoretical references such as the book of anthropologist Joseph S. Alter, Yoga in Modern India, or the book Yoga in the Modern World, by Mark Singleton and Jean Byrne, among others.
Núria Guiu won the 2022 National Culture Award.
*Hito Steyerl, 2012. The Wretched of the Screen.
Participant
Núria Guiu
The Possible Archives project is designed as a framework for activating various proposals, with the idea of remaining open and attentive to the participation of other institutions, organised collectives and all citizens, exploring the limits of what may be considered archivable and expanding possibilities of access, use and distribution, as well as the broadening of the archives themselves.
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