Space Dysphoria: Curating Transfeminist Performance After the Chilean Social Uprising

Abstract

This article defines space dysphoria as a category of analysis and curatorial intervention to address the transformations undergone by transfeminist performance works created during the 2019 Chilean social uprising upon entering art institutions. In the context of the revolt, various actions intervened in public space and produced images that circulated on social media, in the press, and in digital archives. Their subsequent transfer to formal exhibition spaces raises questions about the conditions under which these practices can be mediated without diluting their political force. The analysis focuses on The Body Is Now a Set of Pixels (Matucana 100, 2024) and adopts a qualitative approach that understands the exhibition as a site of knowledge production. From the dual position of researcher and curator, the article examines curatorial and museographic procedures that sustain the works’ embodied dimension, rearticulate the material conditions of their emergence within a new context, and make explicit the institution’s position regarding the circumstances in which they were produced. Space dysphoria designates this process and guides decisions aimed at preventing the neutralization of conflict. Exhibition design reorganizes the relationship between works, context, and circulation, activating visual memories of social mobilization and generating new meanings.