Cristian Quinteros Soto

Sauna Sessions 

Video 15:32 - 2020

Konstakademin, Tensta Konsthall, Skövde Konsthall, Valsta Konst, Galleri Mejan, Nuda

To exfoliate is to remove. To wash a surface of from what’s old, what’s dead, what’s already used. To make what’s new appear. To clean, to cleanse. It’s a repetitive practice. What was at one time unexposed gets furrowed by time and touch, to then again get washed away. What was new gets old, exchanged and rubbed away over and over again. Never finished but in constant process. The practice of exfoliating is cyclical or circular, much like a dialogue and the development of history. To reinvent, to revise and then again.

In Cristian Quinteros Soto’s presentation he wants to explore the sauna as a platform to meditate on the anxiety caused by societal changes and, paradoxical, how collective-care could be a method for collective thinking. One point of departure is the observation that the sauna, as a space for collective nudity, holds the potential to neutralize the expectations that the body is exposed to in society. Can then, the sauna be the place for an open-ended dialogue outside of the framework set up by society norms?

Sauna sessions is a new work in two parts, a video installation and several performances, where the audience is invited to take part in sauna sessions together with the artist.
For the video installation Cristian has filmed the process needed to access the sauna. Using the methodology of different steps in beauty routines, the work stresses the need for exfoliating before applying nurture. In that manner, Cristian wants to explore the rituals of self care as a way to both escape and develop the dialogue regardless of the relation to the other.

Further the work is an exploration of the naked body outside of the body complexes, norms and sexualization, where the sauna is understood to work as a place where bodies can exist separate from the expectations put on them.