The Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza is presenting the fourth edition of Vision and Presence, a cycle of performances that gives visibility to the work of women artists. Curated by Semíramis González, it features ten performative actions over the course of the year which have been expressly created to be seen in the museum. 

For the fourth consecutive year, the galleries, entrance hall and auditorium will serve as a stage for these Spanish and international creators to raise issues of social concern through unprecedented performances that establish dialogues with works from the collection and invite the audience to reflect on issues such as feminism, colonialism, traditions, immigration, the climate crisis and the female body, among others.

From Spain, Mexico, Angola, Cuba, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Chile and Uruguay, the thirteen invited artists this year are Gloria Godínez, Elisa Miralles, Yola Balanga, Susana Pilar, Eugenia S. Rudin, Jessica Díaz, Laura Santander, Teresa Correa, Valentina Cardellino, Andrea Ghuisolfi and the artistic collective O.R.G.I.A, comprising Carmen G. Muriana, Beatriz Higón and Tatiana Sentamans. The cycle's programme is completed by three lectures in which Renata Ribero, Alma Cardoso and Diana Cuéllar will analyse the themes raised in the performances presented at the museum.

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) has maintained its support for the project by inviting artists from Costa Rica, Paraguay and Uruguay through its network of cultural centres, as has The Social Hub, the official accommodation for the artists, and the Ellas Crean [Women creators] Festival as a part of its programme. Furthermore, on this occasion the CAAM-Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Gran Canaria is joining as a collaborator, allowing two creators from the Canary Islands to engage with the programme and for two participants from previous editions of Vision and Presence, Neyén Pailamilla and Agnes Essonti, to join the CAAM’s activities agenda. 

In addition, with the aim of supporting the artists' careers and consolidating their professionalisation by establishing links with other institutions, the cycle is benefiting from the support of the Instituto Cervantes in São Paulo (Brazil), which in March will present the performance (Un)stitched by the Argentinean group Las Domínguez de Ramos, based on their performance in March 2024 at the Museo Thyssen.

Programme of performances and lectures

22 January - Gloria Godínez (México): Decolonial red in the painting of Vincent van Gogh

Gloria Godínez presents the origin of cochineal in pre-colonial Mexico and its transfer to the Canary Islands in a performance narrated in Spanish and Zapotec. Through present-day accounts of its cultivation, she draws attention to the history of this red substance and its cultural and economic impact. In a dialogue with the works by Van Gogh in the Museo Thyssen’s collection, she reinterprets this idea and its colonial connotations of luxury and power. With the collaboration of the CAAM-Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno.

19 February - Elisa Miralles (Spain): Another body

Photographer Elisa Miralles presents a photo-performative action focused on the experience of inhabiting a collective body. In it she constructs an imaginary body through the de-structuring, contortion and mutation of several women’s bodies in order to question canons of beauty, stereotypes, objectification and invisible violence towards female bodies.

12 March - Yola Balanga (Angola): I drown in my own body

Yola Balanga presents a performance that reflects the experience of immigration based on her personal experiences, revealing what her female, black and African body has felt. For the artist, emigrating is more than a physical and practical act, involving feelings and emotions that go beyond the idea of moving geographically from one place to another; it is, in fact, a process of physical, mental, emotional and intimate pain which defines a story and transforms life. This action is part of the Ellas crean [Women creators] festival programme.

26 March - Renata Ribeiro (Spain): Ebó, mandinga and garrafadas: inter-cultural recipes to survive to the end

This lecture will reflect on how artifacts and cultural resources conceived by women offer alternative ways to avoid an ultimate collision in the current context of social and climate crises. Ribeiro presents an atlas of experiences, objects and projects that look for solutions in the fight against collapse.

23 April - Susana Pilar (Cuba): Free

Free by Susana Pilar presents an empowered, self-aware and feminist vision of the black Cuban woman, taking as its reference El rapto de las mulatas (1938) by the Cuban painter Carlos Enríquez, a work in which she considers women to be denigrated. Pilar’s performance reacts against representations of this type and offers new readings of works that undermine the dignity of black women. 

21 May - Eugenia S. Rudin (Costa Rica): Living signs of the landscape

Starting from the gallery in the Museo Thyssen devoted to 19th-century American landscapes, the artist addresses the question of climate-motivated migration. Focusing on appropriations and elements of colonial and pre-Hispanic Latin American popular culture, her performance encourages the audience to reflect in an empathetic and participative manner on migration from the global South and to act against the current global crisis. With the collaboration of the Centro Cutural de España in Costa Rica.

11 June - Jessica Díaz (Paraguay): Reindy (Sister)

Reindy explores the concept of “sister” in the Guaraní language, a term that transcends blood ties and is linked to the spiritual, to work, complicity, love and women’s struggle around the world. The artist pays tribute to spiritual sisters related by blood or life experience, to combative women of all times whose legacy continues to be defended today. With the collaboration of the Centro Cultural de España in Paraguay.

10 September - Alma Cardoso (Mexico): (Dis)appearance: memory and archives of search groups in Mexico

In this performative lecture the disappearance of people in Mexico and the work being undertaken by various groups to generate counter-hegemonic memories and create archives of disappearance is discussed from different viewpoints. All those attending are invited to participate in listening and in the collective embroidery of Bordarles a todxs, an installation and textile archive being created by the artist Fabiola Rayas Chávez, a member of the Familiares Caminando por Justicia group in Michoacán.

17 September - Laura Santander (Chile): Being a Pitcher-Duck

Being a Pitcher-Duck is a performance inspired by a piece of ceramics from the Diaguita culture of northern Chile. The artist brings the object to life to convey the importance throughout history of the water contained in this vessel for these indigenous communities: a natural resource that is increasingly scarce in the area due to human action.

22 October - Teresa Correa (Spain): Mirror wound with scissors

This action aims to question the Western aesthetic and ethical canon in museums in the context of a museum in which art that reinforces this canon predominates. With the participation of colleagues from the IN association, Teresa Correa takes her starting point from Woman in front of the Mirror by Paul Delvaux (1936) in order to engage in a dialogue with her own experience through her mastectomised bust and thus show other bodies in the museum’s galleries. This action links to the celebration on 19 October of World Breast Cancer Day. With the collaboration of the CAAM-Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno.

5 November - Diana Cuéllar (Mexico): Self-account and feminism. Expanded possibilities

The emphasis on the personal lives of female artists is a widely discussed topic in the context of feminism. This lectures explores the scope of the self-account and autobiography through specific cases of women artists and writers who found a poetic-political stance through these formats.

19 November - Valentina Cardellino and Andrea Ghuisolfi (Uruguay): Exotic

This performance is inspired by the ritual of collective creation of Holy Week rugs, a tradition from Guatemala and El Salvador that has spread to other parts of Latin America and through which Cardellino and Ghuisolfi propose an exercise of dislocating colonial narratives. By assembling and disassembling the rug, signs are rearranged, textures hybridised and images of traces recomposed through a traditional, syncretic dance in which the colonial and original heritage coexist. With the collaboration of the Centro Cultural de España in Montevideo.

10 December - O.R.G.I.A (Spain): Ways of seeing (fannyvision)

Ways of seeing (fannyvision) is a multimedia action that critically reflects on the concepts of vision, representation, body and “ocularcentrism”. It makes reference to a selection of female nudes from their collection, making use of resources and strategies of video creation, sculptural language, lecture-performance and action art.

ACTIVITY DETAILS

Title: Vision and Presence 2025.

Venue: Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Performance dates: 22 January, 19 February, 12 March, 23 April, 21 May, 11 June, 17 September, 22 October, 19 November and 10 December 2025. 6 pm, Galleries of the permanent collection, Central hall and Auditorium

Lecture dates: 26 March, 10 September and 5 November 2025. 6pm, Auditorium

Curator: Semíramis González. 

Coordination: Laura Andrada.

With the support of: AECID (Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation)

With the collaboration of: Island Council of Gran Canaria - Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM), Ellas Crean festival, Instituto Cervantes de São Paulo and The Social Hub

Free entry until all seats filled

More information: https://www.museothyssen.org/en/private-area/press/dossiers/vision-and-presence-2025