jorge galan

I am a nurse and an artist. Two identity categories that were implemented in this project. It is pertinent to contextualize the pandemic moment in which this artistic action is carried out, since it is part of its meaning and its subsequent impact in the press and social networks.

After a year and a half of pandemic, confinements and restrictions, mass vaccination arrived. Infections subsided and the end of the tunnel was a collective hope and desire. In the hospital emergency service where I worked throughout the pandemic, we had been receiving infected and correctly vaccinated people for a few weeks, but for the general population, the epidemiological crisis was over. November, inauguration of the Christmas lights in Malaga. In the local press we saw images of Larios Street with tens of thousands of people crowded together. The equation of all these events was evident to those of us who work on the front line: a new wave and a new collapse in the emergency rooms soon. Indeed, that is what happened. The wave of infections and deaths that occurred after Christmas 2021 was the worst of the entire pandemic.

The Covid pandemic has put many dimensions of our current societies to the test. Contagion has directly attacked the model of agglomeration society. Our world is precisely designed to satisfy the masses, while at the same time being closely dependent on them. There is no economy of separation or dispersion. This assertion gives meaning to our enormous metropolises, to the crowded housing with endless floors, to the unbearable traffic jams, to the overflowing shows and to a low cost that ends up denaturing everything it touches.

This artistic proposal explores a new symbol; the PPE or plastic coverall used by healthcare personnel when caring for patients with Covid. PPE is a garment that has had tremendous media exposure. In its passage through the mass media and social networks, a close relationship has been established - for better or worse - between white plastic with blue stripes and the pandemic. Seeing PPE is seeing Covid. The image of PPE has been associated with multiple dramas related to this crisis, even death itself.

Carrying the Dead proposes the exploration and encounter between two realities; the tragic reality and the hedonistic reality.

The action is activated on November 30, 2021, just two or three days after the inauguration of the Christmas lights in Malaga, which acts as a trigger.

A circular route is made through the historic center, which begins and ends on Larios Street. It takes approximately one hour to complete. Dressed in PPE, I alternately push or pull the stretcher with a rope tied to my neck in the shape of a gallows. On the stretcher, a collaborator and friend is completely motionless and completely covered with a sheet.

The record of the action (photos and video) is later published in El Observador Carrying the dead . Later it is picked up by local, regional, national press and finally by most television channels. The media explosion multiplies exponentially, reaching the point of being picked up by international press and agencies.

The viralization on social media exceeds all expectations. Two opposing positions are established; on the one hand, positive identification with the action and on the other, a visceral rejection that in some cases leads to personal disqualification, insults or even explicit threats from denialist and anti-vaccine sectors.

Some media outlets link my social media profiles to the news itself, and the controversy - both for and against - moves to my profiles, where endless discussions between positions take place. I even receive calls from the national police to investigate the existence of hate groups on social media that are promoting harassment.

More than 80 national and international, digital and print media outlets end up echoing the artistic action. After two weeks of interviews, live interventions and articles for a multitude of media in Spain, the media explosion is repeated a week later in South America and especially in Argentina, after the publication of the performance in the newspaper Clarín. Interviews and reports on television programs such as Espejo Publico with Susana Griso and Antena3 Noticias at Antena 3, Aruseros of Alfonso Arus, Mas Vale Tarde, with Iñaki Lopez and Cristina Pardo and Noticias La Sexta, Hoy en Dia with Carlos Pariente on Canal Sur (min. 42), Llego la Hora with Roberto Lopez on 101TV, Crónica TV of Chiche Gelblung in Argentina o Malaga Te Ve, of PTV among some televisions. La Ventana with Carles Francino at Onda Cero and Radio Rivadavia in Argentina among others.