Oráculos de los Márgenes
- Instalation
- Performance
- Drawings
- 2023
Performative and material works within Spells and Potions on rituals and circulation of mystic knowledge across marginalised practices
Oracles / Oráculos de los Márgenes is a series of works that emerges from the research developed in Spells and Potions, engaging with practices of interpretation, ritual, and symbolic language as ways of accessing and transmitting situated knowledge.
Drawing on encounters developed within the Metzineres context, the work brings together experiences related to drug use, BDSM practices, trans identities, care, and pleasure. These lived experiences are translated into a system of images, texts, and performative structures that move between testimony, fiction, and ritual language.
Process
The project develops through the transformation of narratives into symbolic forms.
Experiences shared within the hosted encounters are translated into archetypes, figures, and situations, forming a language that operates across different registers: mystical, political, and embodied. The first and most concentrated articulation of this process is the Drug Tarot, a deck of cards based on archetypes emerging from situations of drug use.
This system expands into further oracles, including a BDSM Oracle and a Trans Oracle, extending the field of interpretation to other marginalised and embodied practices.
In this context, hosting extends into interpretation: participants, performers, and audiences engage with the material as an open system, where meaning is produced collectively through use.
Forms
The research is translated into a series of interconnected forms:
Drug Tarot: a set of 40 illustrated cards developed from narratives related to drug use, forming a system of interpretation grounded in lived experiences of consumption, care, dependency, and pleasure
Performative readings: live activations in which the deck is interpreted through voice, narration, and one-to-one or collective encounters, producing spaces of exchange and reflection
Installation / Oracle fair: a spatial structure composed of three kiosks built from a series of drawings by the artist, informed by medieval imagery related to drug use, BDSM practices, and transsexual rituals. Conceived as an oracle fair, the installation creates an environment for performative readings and encounters, in which the deck and other oracles are activated, intersect and circulate.
These forms operate as interconnected modes of activation, in which the oracle functions as a central device while spatial and performative elements expand its field of meaning.
Context
The work was developed within the framework of Spells and Potions in collaboration with Metzineres, and presented in performative and exhibition contexts, including MACBA (Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona).
It forms part of a broader inquiry into alternative epistemologies and the ways in which marginalised experiences generate symbolic systems, collective rituals, and forms of knowledge that resist dominant narratives.
The Drug Tarot is available in three languages. If you are interested in acquiring a deck, please visit the shop
Credits
Concept and direction: Christina Schultz
Developed in collaboration with: Metzineres
Participants and collaborators: members of the Metzineres community
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image by Anke Luckmann 
image by Anke Luckmann
image by Anke Luckmann
image by Andre Gaietano
image by Christina Schultz
image by Andre Gaietano
image by Andre Gaietano
image by Andre Gaietano
image by Christina Schultz
image by Andre Gaietano
image by Andre Gaietano
image by Andre Gaietano
images by Christina Schultz
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