2018
HD double channel video, 1 min 30 sec, color, sound.
Approximately eight kilometers south of Hebron there is Fawwar, one of the oldest Palestinian refugee camps under Israeli occupation. In Role-playing games, Guidi still looks at a children’s play space (after Zouhleqa, 2012 and Attractions, 2015) focusing on this camp. Places that seem improvised, that children occupy transforming it into their field of action. In this way, the terraces become a safe alternative for games where, still in that context, boys and girls play separately. The gestures of the children, in these recordings, seem to manifest certain surveillance tactics, communicating, in this way, the daily reality.
The artist compares children’s play possibilities, all located in the area affected by the same conflict. However, one responds to a park designed by adults loaded with established norms and endowed with meaning (Attractions, 2015), and the other two (Zouhleqa, 2012 and Role-Play Games 2018), seem to be designed by the children themselves with the creative freedom that this entails, in spite of the adult interference that possibly exists. Children’s play, in certain contexts, has become something so constructed by adults that it doesn’t provide the child with the tools to develop their sensitivity and creativity. In any reality it has been conflictive or not, stable or precarious, to return the child to his game is to rescue him from the margins of the conflict (Lars von Larsen).
Exhibited at
La solitaria #4, trama34, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Apr 7, 2018, curated by Zaida TralleroPYÉ PAYPYÉ BA YEBA, Salón, Madrid, Jul 10, 2021, curated by Site-specific conversation (Beatriz Escudero, Zaida Trallero)
Aproximadamente a ocho kilómetros al sur de Hebrón está ubicado Fawwar, uno de los campamentos de refugiados palestinos más antiguos bajo ocupación israelí. En Role-playing games, de nuevo Guidi fija la mirada a un espacio de juego infantil. Un lugar que parece improvisado, en el cual los niños ocupan transformándolo en su campo de acción. De esta forma, los terrados se convierten en alternativa segura para el juego, donde, todavía en ese contexto, niños y niñas juegan por separado. Los gestos de los niños, en estas grabaciones, parecen manifestar ciertas tácticas de vigilancia, comunicándonos, de esta forma, la realidad cotidiana.
El artista retrae un espacio que parece diseñado por los propios niños con la libertad creativa que eso comporta, a pesar de la interferencia adulta que posiblemente exista. El juego infantil, en determinados contextos, se ha convertido en algo tan construido por los adultos que no aporta a la niña/niño las herramientas para poder desarrollar su sensibilidad y creatividad. En cualquier realidad se ha conflictiva o no, estable o precaria, devolver al niño a su juego es rescatarlo de los márgenes del conflicto (Lars von Larsen).