CHICOTÁS: stretches of life

A chicotá is a word solely used in Seville (Spain) to depict “the” journey in-between stops. And CHICOTÁS: stretches of life is a multi-sensorial exhibition-space in 7 chicotás (or journeys) resulting from my personal exploration of Seville’s Holy Week and developed through the research I undertook for my dissertation on my MA Culture Industry, Goldsmiths. This journey aimed to explore the possibility of reshaping this ritual, transforming what is deeply rooted in Seville’s culture and system of beliefs into a new experience for “everyone else”. Meaning, those who are unfamiliar with that culture and that set of beliefs.

By recreating an abstraction of the experience of Seville’s Holy Week, I hope to produce an all-embracing “tool”, which could foster connections and cultivate community beyond beliefs. And, mostly, which could enable new forms of experiencing collective rituals beyond religion. Therefore, CHICOTÁS: stretches of life is the result of this query and a space designed based on the idea of producing a new universalized experience of Seville’s Holy Week through audio-visual installations and art objects.

The set of artworks have been produced by a group of multidisciplinary artists who are unfamiliar with this ritual themselves: Allison Tanenhau, Daniel Johns, Ella Wigfall-Gamble, Jaime Rodriguez, Kane O'Brien, Kevin Fuccillo, Myrna Marianovits, Paige Isaacson and Paulina Brosz. In an attempt to bottle the emotional collective experience that it triggers. And hence, invite you, the visitor, to get immersed in this multi-sensorial journey of (re)discovering this deeply rooted Sevillian ritual. Beyond culture, religion and religiosity.