Alicia Framis takes conflicts or contradictions she sees around her as the starting point for the new ideas, models or prototypes that make up her series. Violence, security, coexistence, communication and loneliness are among the key themes that have articulated her work. Framis gets involved in specific issues and projects for a certain period of time \u2014which can range from a few days to a few years\u2014 during which her authentic \u2018works in progress\u2019 are defined, transformed and evolve, often in relation to the places where they are presented.<\/p>\n
The artist once defined the aim of her work as being essentially \u2018to create a good concept for life\u2019: a positioning as direct as it is complex, and one that in the last analysis is simply an affirmation of the need for art as a catalyst for other ways of looking, seeing and questioning things. These premises are present in all of Framis\u2019s projects to date, a few of which it may be pertinent to recall here, as an introduction to Guantanamo Museum, her most recent work. In Dreamkeeper (1997), for example, she placed an advert in the papers offering to watch over the dreams of lonely people; in Remix Buildings (1999-2000) she put forward a new approach to architecture, bringing together unlikely combinations of functions \u2014a cinema and a hospital, an underground railway and a cemetery, a motorway and a memorial, and so on\u2014 in order to demonstrate the extent to which our society strives to render invisible all those aspects of existence related to disease, old age, suffering and death. Anti-Dog (2002-2003), a reflection on violence against women, consisted of a collection of dresses made of special fabrics: bullet-proof, flame-retardant and resistant to attack by dogs. Secret Strike (2003-\u2026) is a series of collective performances staged with the support of various institutions \u2014Tate Modern in London, Inditex in Santiago de Compostela, Rabobank in Utrecht\u2026\u2014 in which the workers interrupt whatever they happen to be doing for a few moments and bring the activity of these major employers to a complete standstill.<\/p>\n
Collaboration, then, is another key aspect of Framis\u2019s work. Not only on the part of the architects, designers, musicians or writers whom she often enlists as her travelling companions, but also of the people she directly involves in her projects, and of the spectator, who cannot help but be implicated into her works.<\/p>\n
Guantanamo Museum is the latest project by Alicia Framis, and the Centre d\u2019Art Santa M\u00f2nica is the second stop on what looks set to be lengthy expected itinerary which started at the Galer\u00eda Helga de Alvear in Madrid with a \u2018sketchbook\u2019 in which the artist presented her concerns in relation to a highly topical issue: the prison at Guant\u00e1namo. Since 2002, the U.S. military has used its base in Guant\u00e1namo Bay (Cuba) as a maximum security detention centre. The prisoners in Guant\u00e1namo, seized and imprisoned without trial, are classified as \u2018enemy combatants\u2019 and suspected of terrorist activities, deprived of the most basic rights and systematically tortured\u2026 Numerous initiatives in various parts of the world continue to condemn the existence of Guant\u00e1namo. A few weeks ago, the press announced that \u2018the U.S. Supreme Court gives the coup de grace to the limbo at Guant\u00e1namo\u2019, citing the judges\u2019 decision that the detainees have a constitutional right to defend themselves in the civil courts. This may be the definitive end of Guant\u00e1namo.<\/p>\n