Marta Fernández Calvo
And if the ancho chili seed could speak what would it tell you?
It would say: I turn bad things away
Yo hecho para atrás las cosas malas (I turn bad things away) gathers stories of ingredients that serve as amulets of protection; ingredients that have consoled, soothed and cared for people and communities. The process developed from a series of encounters and conversations that highlight the agency of foods in our lives.
The opening of the project began with a performance at Mercado de Artesanías de la Ciudadela, where as an act of remembrance through singing, we invoked the stories of the ingredients that we witnessed. From the market, we moved in procession to the exhibition space to continue connecting the stories through Food Chorus, a participatory sound piece in which the public explores the reverberation of the sound of these ingredients in the body.
In the exhibition, the ingredients materialize as amulets. The altar represents the meeting point where the stories converge, a celebration of oral tradition and its constituents; sender and receiver. I turn bad things away conceives the body as an altar where the stories subsist and continue their journey.
Stories: Esperanza Mendoza, Natividad Santos, Ignacia Velasco, Andrea de la Torre, Marta Fernández Calvo, Ana Castella, Ana Luisa González, Nayeli Vázquez, Adriana, Dulce, y Marilú, Hermanas Martina Orduña, Asunción Cornejo, Aurea Luz Pérez, Elvira Orozco, Inocencia Pichardo, Mercedes Arias, Carmen Velázquez y Guadalupe Mendiola.
Hands: Nayeli Vázquez, Cesar Lucano, José Luis Lucano, Irina Calderón, Marta Fernández Calvo, Luis García, María de la Luz Hernández, Don Venustiano y Doña Juliana Flores Ibarra. Voices: Marisa Naina, Natalia Guerrero y Leika Mochán.
“The kitchen is for me, a space of resistance in which recipes become musical pieces, alter egos, performances and fictional exercises with which to cross borders and summon joy, love and mourning.”
— Marta Fdz Calvo
ABOUT MARTA FERNÁNDEZ CALVO
Riojan Arts Award 2019, studied Fine Arts at the Faculty of Cuenca and worked as a researcher at the Italian Ministry of Culture in Venice. For eleven years he has lived in Italy and Ireland and has developed his practice internationally.
Her work has been part of exhibitions such as No Soul for Sale in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London, Utopia Station curated by Molly Nesbit and Rirkrit Tiravanija for the 53rd Venice Biennale, Do it curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Stefano Boeri for the Bevilacqua La Massa Foundation in Venice, Influx, Reflux, Reflex at the La Regenta Cultural Center (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) and the National Gallery of Johannesburg, and La timidez de la copa de los árboles (The shyness of the tree canopy) curated by Beatriz Alonso for Frac- Lorraine (Metz-France) and MARCO (Vigo).
It has received the support of national and international institutions among which the following stand out: the Embassy of Spain in South Africa, the Cervantes Institute, the Ministry of Culture, ACE, Government of La Rioja, Via Farini and Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan), Nirox Foundation ( Johannesburg), Conde Duque Cultural Center (Madrid) and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Her work has been awarded numerous times in calls of national prestige -Help for the Promotion of Spanish Art and New Trends in the Arts of the Ministry of Culture, Aid to the mobility of Cultural Action, Young Exhibition of Plastic Arts of La Rioja- , and international - first prize Talk to the City of La Fabbrica del Vapore (Milan). In addition, he has participated in a large number of artistic residencies such as Dakar City of Art, Map-Zar (Richmond-South Africa), Via Farini (Milan), Arts on Main (Johannesburg-South Africa), The Guest House (Cork-Ireland) and Museo Tornielli (Ameno-Italy).
In her future projects, Marta continues with her strong commitment to the experiential and the performative applied to new research subjects such as climate and functional diversity. These projects will see the light in 2020 in Folkstone (England), Galicia, Madrid and Marseille (France). Lives in Madrid. 
Photography by Amaya Hernández.