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Paloma Ayala

Paloma Ayala (b.1980, Matamoros, Mexico) is a visual artist interested in empowering the relationship between domestic living strategies and political contexts. She is a diaspora mother and a mestiza daughter whose work fictionalizes historical, ecological or social problematics as means of analysis and critique. Paloma´s projects nourish visions of connection between human and more than human spheres, they dream of emancipation from marginalizing dominant structures, and emphasize practices of care across different topographies and borders.

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On caring for the smallest entity possible

by Paloma Ayala

Because we exist in constant interaction with others and with our environment, because all human and non-human beings are relational, inevitably interconnected in our planetary existence, for this reason, each movement we make is not carried out by one, but by many or all. Let's imagine that every time we move, we pull braids and ropes and entire looms, in the direction of our movements. Movements that had an origin, were initiated by other movements, in turn have effects on the future.

We all accompany each other all the time and everywhere.

We can thus imagine unions in spaces and times; in environmental, generational or even evolutionary relationships. We can imagine great connections on human scales and macro scales: with ancestors, with plants and pets, with grandchildren not yet born, with the skies of the political future, with the waters of our erotic dreams... so many things that unite us with everything and everyone.

But what about the others? What about those connections possibly made invisible by the experience of our own body, skilled when it comes to seeing, touching, smelling, tasting things in our own spatial or temporal planes, but useless when trying to understand the beings or knowledge that exist outside of ourselves, in the present?

What happens if our body is not hegemonic, but is non-white, rural, neuro-atypical, with different motor skills, older...?

What if we try to take care of the smallest possible being? 

Not a literally tiny being, being micro is a metaphor to reflect on what we cannot perceive and, consequently, we cannot connect with, or accompany.

For example:
Today when you hear the annoying bzzzzz of the mosquito in your room, offer it your leg and observe it for a few days. What does the mosquito do with your blood? Have you already Googled and learned about their life processes? 

Today when your plant on the window looks a little thirsty, instead of pouring water on it, spit on it. This is how you introduce it to the microbiota that you have inside. What happens to your plant after a few days of spitting on it? 

Today when the ghost of your deceased dog appears in your dreams, put a plate of food out for him. Make sure you place that plate in a place where other dogs can access it. Use tarot cards or ask the nearest witch/visionary: do you know if my dog liked her food?

The day before yesterday one of the most aggressive Israeli attacks on Palestine occurred in Rafah. Close your eyes and ask your ancestors to accompany so many murdered people. Ask the ancestors what they did to accompany it. Did they accompany with words, with their presence, or how? Try to do the same with the people who are still on this plane and who lost their loved ones, their community and their living spaces. Even from a distance.

Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

You will surely have better ideas! 

This is a speculative exercise. Based on our imagination, how can we exercise relationships outside of our own personal and cultural understandings, as part of the human species?

Personally, I think that exercising these imaginations helps us to be less anthropocentered and to extend community care. What do you think?