The Formaldehyde Trip
2017
Series of videos and performative screenings
The Formaldehyde Trip imagines murdered Mixtec environmental activist, Bety Cariño (1973-2010) in her politically-surrealist transtemporal journey through the underworld, where she finds pluriversal companions formed by Mesoamerican deities, witches and animals who join her and care for her in order to make her legacy proliferate. Bety’s journey is a process of becoming Coyolxauhqui, the Mexica goddess of moon who embodies the powers of nighttime and who, according to Gloria Anzaldúa, has the capacity to recover from severe harm by putting her fragmented body together again –a capacity that Anzaldúa came to call Coyolxauhqui imperative-. An axolotl preserved in formaldehyde plays the role of a story teller, a native educated guide, the object of desire/re-search of Alexander Von Humboldt, a multiplied dildo, a healing capsule, and a ghostly creature who travels through historical and contemporary colonial forms of extractivism.
Festwochen, 2018, Vienna. Photo: Inés Bacher
Kyoto Art Center, 2024. Photo: Hyogo Mugyuda
Performance in Progress, SFMOMA, 2017. Photo: Courtesy SFMOMA
Performance in Progress, SFMOMA, 2017. Photo: Courtesy SFMOMA
Schwules Museum Berlin 2017. Photo: Alex Giegold
Musical composition and Sound Design:
FEDERICO SCHMUCLER
Lyrics:
NAOMI RINCÓN-GALLARDO
Cast:
BÁRBARA LÁZARA, LIZ MISTERIO, DAYRA FYAH, SURE ELIZABETH, BETZA MEE, CLAUDIA LÓPEZ TERROSO, ROSARIO ORDÓÑEZ, LUCINA ROJAS, LUIS ENRIQUE GARCÍA, OLIVIA HERNÁNDEZ, DENISE BENAVIDES, BROWN AMY, ALMA HERRERA-PAZMIÑO, IRIS JANET DÍAZ, SOPHIA MABELITINI, OSCAR TIDD, MARIE STRAUSS and NAOMI RINCÓN-GALLARDO
Cinematography:
DALIA HUERTA (México), ILONA BERGER (San Francisco), GABRIEL ROSSELL (Berlin), SILVIA DAS FADAS (Viena)
Video Editing:
DALIA HUERTA and NAOMI RINCÓN-GALLARDO
Camera assistant (San Francisco):
JILL REITER
Choreography:
SOPHIA WANG
Sound Engineer and co-arranger of music:
DAVID MOLINA
Pro-duction manager Mexico:
MARÍA FERNANDA AYALA GUZMÁN
Production manager San Francisco (SF MOMA):
GINA BASSO
Production assistants in San Francisco:
CHRISITAN DAVIES and JULIO BADEL
Set Building / Galería de la Raza:
CHRISTIAN DAVIES, JULIO BADEL, GINA BASSO and FRANK SMIGIEL
Vocals:
SAN CHA, DANISHTA RIVERO, BÁRBARA LÁZARA, DAVID KATZ, ROB SPECTOR, DAYRAH FYAH and SURE ELIZABETH
Batería:
WENDY FARINA
Video Editign:
DALIA HUERTA and NAOMI RINCÓN-GALLARDO
Props:
EMILIO CONVERSO and NAOMI RINCÓN-GALLARDO
Costume design:
NAOMI RINCÓN-GALLARDO
Seamstresses:
BLANCA ESTELA ESCANDÓN and DOROTHY MARTÍNEZ
Photo Docu-mentation:
FABIOLA TORRES-ALZAGA, ELIANA CETTO, CLAUDIA LÓPEZ TERROSO, KATHRIN SONNTAG
Animation in Accumulation by Dispossession:
ELISA NAVARRO and GALAMOT SHAKU
Make up:
TAE SOLANA and ABRIL CENDÍ
The Formaldehyde Trip was a project commissioned by SF MOMA, part of Performance in Progress. Co-curated by Frank Smigiel, associate curator of Performance & Film SF MOMA, and Ani Rivera, executive director of Galería de la Raza.