Regina José Galindo's 'Tierra' at PAV Torino Confronts Land, War, and Coal

Guatemalan performer Regina José Galindo presents 'Tierra' at PAV in Turin, a solo exhibition curated by Marco Scotini spanning her twenty-year career. The show centers on the theme of land as a vital foundation and a source of violence, war, and power abuse. Works include 'Piedra' (2013), where she crouches covered in coal as passersby urinate on her, and 'Mazorca' (2015), in which she hides in a wheat field as four men destroy it with machetes. The exhibition culminates in a new site-specific performance, 'Coal to Light a Fire', where Galindo is slowly buried under a heavy pile of coal, leaving only her face visible. The piece denounces European countries reopening coal-fired power plants to compensate for Russian energy cuts following the invasion of Ukraine. Galindo describes the conflict as a chess game between superpowers, highlighting dependency and the abuse of land over negotiation. In an interview, she reflects on the pandemic's failure to improve human ethics, the link between land possession and patriarchal control of women's bodies, and Italy's lack of historical memory regarding fascism. She explains her minimalist aesthetic as a result of poetic pruning, aiming to create lasting, impactful images.