The Body As Space and Territory

THE BODY AS A SPACE A TERRITORY

2019/2025

Since 2019, this project has explored the body as a space to be inhabited, a territory that defines individuality and marks the boundary between reality and others.

The proposal suggests that the body is the only element the immigrant truly possesses. In the process of moving into a new reality, culture, and place, a crisis of identity and individuality emerges. The journey thus becomes an inevitable exploration— a search to find balance within a new context and to reconnect with an intimate, rediscovered space.
This process is presented through three spaces: Intimacy, Core, and Shelter.
The basic needs for survival (such as nourishment, protection from the climate, and rest) take on new meanings upon arrival in an unfamiliar place. For the immigrant, these everyday actions (eating, adjusting to the seasons, sleeping under a new roof) become acts of recognition and care for the body, from a place of intimacy, as if it were the only land truly owned.
During the adaptation process, the body becomes the core, the grounding point for connecting with reality. It tries to open itself to its surroundings amid the uncertainty of the new (represented by the black background). It is an attempt to sow new seeds in its own soil.

The body is also a shelter for life itself — a territory that constantly transforms, yet always remains familiar. A space that seeks to create balance in the face of a new reality.

SANTOLOFRANCO