Cabello/Carceller. A Voice for Erauso. Epilogue for a Trans Time
Presentation by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
Free, until full capacity is reached
This encounter screens the video installation Una voz para Erauso. Epílogo para un tiempo trans (A Voice for Erauso. Epilogue for a Trans Time, 2022), by artist duo Cabello/Carceller, a work recently acquired by the Museo Reina Sofía Collection. It also features a presentation by the writer Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, the author of the novel Las niñas del naranjel (The Girls from the Orange Grove, Penguin Random House, 2023) on Catalina/Antonio de Erauso.
Cabello/Carceller’s video installation pivots around Catalina/Antonio de Erauso (ca. 1592–1650): a nun, army lieutenant, non-binary writer and one of the most fascinating figures from Spain’s Golden Age. The artist duo intertwine history with contemporary trans politics upon fixing their gaze on a captivating yet complex figure. Catalina de Erauso was born in San Sebastián somewhere between 1585 and 1592 and was sex assigned a female. She was known in historiography as “la Monja Alférez”, or “the Ensign Nun”, in part owing to her picaresque autobiography in which she narrates the time of her escape from a convent cross-dressed as a man to her role in the army and as a merchant in the colonies of the Americas, even obtaining a papal bull to dress in male habits under the name Antonio. In the video installation, three non-binary people (Tino de Carlos, Lewin Lerbours and Bambi) raise questions around such a contradictory subject — at once transgender and conquistador — while considering possible pasts and futures from otherness.
The activity engages in a dialogue with Orlando, mi biografía política (Orlando. My Political Biography, 2023), a film by Paul B. Preciado.
Credits
Cabello/Carceller. Una voz para Erauso. Epílogo para un tiempo trans (A Voice for Erauso. Epilogue for a Trans Time)
Spain, 2022, colour, original version in Spanish, DA, 28’. Museo Reina Sofía Collection
