© Maria Cosmès, When We Were Weaving, 2007. Photo Henry Chan

1963–2018, Spain

https://www.maria-cosmes.stidna.org/

Maria Cosmès’ work focuses on the relationships, interpersonal relationships, links and ties with one another. Using rope, string, thread, rubber bands, Cosmès builds her performance in collaboration with the audience, each performance is informed by time, space and place. As an anthropologist, she is particularly interested in these differences, and at times, similarities.

Carlos Piña and Maria Cosmès have collaborated on many works since 1998 under the name Collective Stidna, most notably the series, To Leave The Closet. The works in this series ranged from installation to performance and urban intervention. To Leave The Closet focused on both personal and societal psychotherapeutic imagery, informed by both Maria and Carlos’s own experiences in treatment, asking the question, “If so many people in our society need medication, who is the ill? The people or the society?” The aim of the Stidna Collective, through these works and others, is to create a forum for the artists to relate to each other and the audience on an intimate, person-to-person basis, not as a nameless faceless collective. This aim was in keeping with the earnest and cathartic nature of the works in the series To Leave The Closet, which sought to unveil and cast light on the shadow of judgment, fear and misunderstanding around madness and taboo. Not only are Pina and Cosmès long standing collaborators, they also work together on eBent International Performance Art Festival which takes place each year in Barcelona and Madrid.