Cura
Cura, 2019 – ongoing
Action, first performed by the artist in Mexico city, Mexico, 2019
Video documentation: 4K video with sound, 5'16''
Cura is an action in public space that can be performed by anyone following the instructions.
Cura is a further subsistence of Adrien Missika’s «vegetation Agapé» series. In this work one can see the artist himself offering spa treatment to the plants that fill in the lost spaces caused by the megapolis urban planning. Sad and depressed, those plants feel estranged and neglected from life.
Walking next to the highways in the city surrounded by gigantic architecture, Missika is cleaning the plants with a cloth and half filled water bucket.
Performed with a romantic approach and thus gaining a poetic value, Cura is the gesture of caring that denies anthropocentric beliefs. Unlike traditional techniques used for painting, the action of cleaning the dust reflects the opposite: applying a colour by removing a layer.