SEE EXHIBITIONS
An Immersive Exhibition by Donna Avilés
May 28, 2022, Pandora Art Gallery, Berlin
REPROGRAMMING was an immersive and sensorial art experience that invited the audience to reprogram the way we perceive others. The exhibition aimed to dissolve the categories that have historically shaped our view of one another – origin, sexuality, gender, preferences – in order to open a path toward a deeper and more essential vision: one that sees the human being as a unit, as an equal, manifested in different colours.
Beyond labels, we all feel, we all get hungry, we all face fears and challenges. We come from different places, we live different lives, but we share the same human condition. The exhibition sought to express this simple yet powerful truth: we are one humanity – diverse in form, united in essence.
May 28, 2022, Pandora Art Gallery, Berlin
Bodypainting was the main medium for this exploration. By painting bodies and erasing external markers, the work broke away from the logic of hypersexualization and objectification that dominates our society. By neutralizing physical appearance, it opened the door to a more authentic connection – a symbolic dance toward harmony, where the body no longer seduces or competes, but inhabits, breathes, and communicates from a place of equality.
The performative video accompanying the installation deepened this idea. Through meditative and ritualistic imagery, it asked the question:
What would happen if we stopped trying to charm, to compete, to sell ourselves? What if we simply saw each other?
If we removed the layers of imposed sexualization, if we stopped conforming to market-driven and image-based standards, we could embark on a journey of self-recognition that would inevitably lead us to truly see the other as well.
REPROGRAMMING was a concept exhibition expressed through photographs of real people painted with body art, a looped performative video installation, an immersive mirrored room, live music, and live dance performances. The exhibition culminated in an intimate and symbolic closing act: I, Donna Avilés, stood naked in the gallery space and invited the audience to paint directly onto my body – a collective act of vulnerability, connection, and transformation.
REPROGRAMMING was an invitation to that journey. A proposal to disarm judgment and rebuild connection.
Because only when we understand ourselves, can we truly recognize the other. And it is there – in that point of shared authenticity – that a truly symbiotic and harmonious society might emerge.
Video Performance
Reset is the name of the video performance.
We live in a society where gender and sex is one of the primary focuses of how we behave in society. living together but ignoring the total living mass of the planet. if we realize that by suppressing the importance of gender, color, race, sexual orientation, social status. we could break out of this cubic perspective where we find ourselves living, without having the visual clarity of spirit and intellect to perceive ourselves as equals. Being aware that our actions have repercussions on others, as theirs have on us. Aware that we could dance evolutionarily as a beautiful complex whole of synergistic matter without the need for the individual self in order to live in temperance as a whole.
Warning: This video contains artistic nudity. Viewer discretion is advised.
Body Paint Artist
Donna Aviles
Coreográfica and Video Director
Donna Aviles
Projection Creation
Donna Aviles
Performance Dancers
Niccolò Brumat
@yung_w33d_niki
Anna de Courcy
@Anna.decourcy instagram
Clara Escudero
@agua.clara
Musicjuan lazaro
@azka___Kleineskind
Just Dust
Filming and Post Production
Thomas Humphrey
@hmmmphrey
Photography
Anxalogic aka Angela Jimenez
@anxalogic
Josefina Reyes
Oportus@ovlicua
Body Paint Models
Chicho
Chu Yan Lam Roby
@chuyanlam
barbara cambpell @oyeestupida
solomon
Gummy
@aggrogami
fhillyp felder
@fyfelder
Josefina Reyes Oportus
Projection Experience Film
Mike
@mukulux
Luca
@lucacerciello