Inspired by Latin American political activism and experimental theater, Ramírez-Figueroa questions dominant narratives surrounding recent episodes in Guatemalan history, exposing their symbolic and affective layers. Through the physicality of bodies and staged environments that oscillate between fantasy and reality, he revisits individual and collective traumas, proposing a critical view of the effects of extractivism, civil war and the social imbalance experienced by the indigenous population.

His work is marked by an ambiguous aesthetic, where sculptural elements coexist with the absurd, the comic and the disturbing. Creating sensory spaces that combine the oneiric with the political, Ramírez-Figueroa challenges the boundaries between fiction and document, body and memory, art and reparation.

The conversation takes place in the context of the performance “De Espiral en Espiral” commissioned by TBA21 and co-produced by BoCA, premiering during the biennial in Madrid, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and in Lisbon, at the MAC/CCB Museu de Arte Contemporânea and Centro de Arquitetura.

Biography
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa lives and works in Guatemala City. His work has been exhibited at museums and art centres around the world, for instance the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá – MAMBO, Bogotá (2023), The Power Plant, Toronto (2020), New Museum, New York (2018), CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2017), the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2016), Tate Modern, London (2015) and Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2013), among others.