Beatriz Cifuentes

anxious, compulsive and artistically-driven

I grew up with what would be considered a perfect childhood. I was privileged: growing up in Nicaragua, a country with an extremely polarized economy and a classist society, in a well-off catholic family of good reputation, I went to a bilingual private school, had a great social life with tons of friends, a big family, food to eat, a roof over my head, water to drink, and so on… I had to be grateful. I grew up without asking any questions. I used this project as a catalyst to revisit my childhood and ask the questions on my own mental health that I never got the chance to. When writing this piece, I kept looking for big and dramatic, entertaining stories. Instead, I found value in honesty and wrote very personal memories from a perspective I’d never spoken out loud before. I decided to make a two-part installation; the book aspect tells the story, the video gives it context. In this piece, I deep dived into a conversation with myself, about my anxiety, my compulsive behavior of disordered eating and how natural it is to me to process things through art-making. The video and audio give the memories specificity: showcasing their location, colors, feeling, and sounds… emphasizing their truth, performing their tone. “anxious, compulsive and artistically-driven” was a necessary piece for me to do before going forward in my practice: acknowledging who I am today and why I am like this, genuinely.

www.instagram.com/beatrizcifuentes.art