Portal Lento (por mis alumnos) is a work I made using Ricardo Basbaum’s NBP object. The object was lent to me in the COVID winter of 2021 and I had it for over a month. I understood the object—even before my possession of it—as a relational object. Still I was uncertain what I would do with it given the social-distancing restrictions of the pandemic.
The object sat in my office for a few weeks—seemingly inactive—although it was haunting me. Then the weather became extreme. It started to snow and the temperature dropped to arctic levels. I took the NBP outside, wearing it as a scarf first, then riding it as a sled on a small hill outside of my University office. I then put the NBP in my car, where it was in the way of my wife and children for another week. My wife drove it to her job and the kids had to sit next to it whenever we went out. One day the NBP finally spoke to me. It said, “put me outside and pour water on me.” I followed its directions, placing it in my backyard and pouring several gallons of cold water on it. I put four flourescent safety cones around it to demarcate its exhibition site. While I was performing this ritual I realized what I was making. I was making a monument/memorial to the relationship I have to my students. The NBP became a symbolic portal; a channel between them and I.
For all the days that the winter freeze covered the NBP, I continued to pour water on it. Over the days it turned into a block of ice. When the temperature warmed up the ice melted and the NBP fell over. I picked it up, wiped it dry and passed it along to its next steward.
The NBP came to me because of a project Catalina Hernandez-Cabal and Natalia Espinel enacted between 2020 to 2022. The project MOVENCOUNTERS invited a collaboration with Ricardo Basbaum and took on various manifestations including the traveling and transference of the NBP, an artist lecture, and an artist residency.
