Roberto Barbosa

Lilies, 2024
Charcoal on paper, 210 x 120 cm
at Casa RARO, Barcelona, Spain

Lily Azteca, 2022
Pencil on paper, 21 x 29.7 cm

Rosal, 2024
Rose trunk with thorns on nail.

Nepantlera (video previews), 2023
Video Performance, 7:31 min.

HEIMA, Seyðisfjörður, Iceland

Bridge between worlds through ritual transformation.

In this video, I explore the concept of „the dreaming body,“ a form of queer, shamanistic ritual that allows me to transcend the limitations of space, time, and society. I draw on the ancient wisdom of „nepantla,“ the Nahuatl word for the in-between space where nature and spirit, humans and the divine, meet and interact. According to Mexican indigenous belief, the soul is detachable and can embody both human personality and the anima mundi, the vital force of the world. In the in-between space of nepantla, the soul can connect body and nature to spirit, creating a bridge of communication and transformation. Here I identify as a nepantlera, a liminal being who can traverse diverse realities and psychic states, challenging the natural order and venturing beyond the status quo into other worlds. Through this video, I invite you to join me in my journey of becoming a nepantlera, a liminal person at the threshold of form, forever betwixt and between.

Video performance at the New York Art Residency and Studios (NARS) Foundation, Brooklyn, 2024.

Double Moral, 2022
Mixed Media 30.5 x 28.5 x 26.5 cm

Nails, 2022 (ongoing)
Shells, leaves, and flower petals on nails.

Desires, 2022
Mixed Media, 64.5 x 28.5 x 30 cm.

The character, 2023 (ongoing)
Photo by Panagis Marketos

Phallic objects, 2022 (ongoing)
Glass, dimensions variable

Self Portrait (Portal), 2021
C-Print, 19 x 23 cm

Self Portrait (Foot), 2021
C-Print, 19 x 23 cm

Fragile, 2021
Inkjet print on aluminium, 10 x 10 x 3 cm.

Memorial to the people who died after the collapse of a metro overpass
due to government negligence in Mexico City on May 3, 2021.

1 Square Mile City, 2019
Wood, 300 x 300 x 400 cm
Lichthalle, Städelschule, Frankfurt a.M.
Photos by Wolfgang Günzel

There is no city without architecture and there is no architecture without the city.

The city is the birthplace of the theatre, the temple, the hall of justice, the parliament, the gymnasium, the bath, the bazar, the stadium, the colosseum, the church, the museum, the library, the prision, the hospital, the psychiatric clinic, the hotel, the casino, the high-rise, the World Trade Center, and it is currently also the place of data centres and pencil towers to store financial capital. The city hosts the largest artefacts we know. The city is not only the artefact of a collection of historical buildings but also the place where new forms of architecture emerge and are produced. The city is the object of our spatial culture. The city is the author of its architecture.

This object is representing a „real“ City. It is based on the architecture of the contemporay city of New York, which was studied, analysed, and finally designed in an analytic modular system. The exhibition object equals exactly the size of contemporary city developments, like the Hudson Yard Project around Penn Station, and contains one square mile of floor area. The distribution of each of the following functions:

1. The pencil towers – space of financial capital,
2. The housing slab – space of bio-politics,
3. The hotel – space of inhabitation,
4. The gridded mat-building – space of consumption,
5. The gigantic non-human factory – space of production,

equals proportionally the amount of square miles of floor area that these functions occupy within a contemporary city, like New York City.

The Common Knowledge of the City, 2019
Cardboard, 3D printed PLA, Wood, Adhesive material 110 x 80 x 20 cm

Research based on a close formal reading of the work of Aldo Rossi and his book “Architecture of the City.” The thesis argues that typology is something that goes beyond authorship and functionality. It goes beyond authorship because typology is not defined by a specific building, typology can only be understood if we compare different buildings and see that they share similarities in their actual formal organization and these similarities are identified as typological themes. This project puts forward the common of the city which is the collective intelligence that takes form on specific typological themes and proposes a new organizational diagram for the city of New York.