MARA BUENO

'My Grandparent's Tenant' by Grace Schwindt

2011-08-25T16:46:00.000-07:00

For the past 6 weeks I have been working in the Costume department for the production of a film. It has been incredibly exhausting but also really very exciting.

We started filming on August the 20th and since then I had very very little time to take pictures, let alone sleep. Yesterday we finally finish on scene 2, and today I finally did not open my email with a tone of emails to respond to actors, director and producers; only one email came from the crew, and that was the wrap photo, with many but not all of us.

I will be heading to wales in a couple of days, so til then I guess it will take me a little time to up load the few pics I had the chance to take, for now I leave you with the one from the crew. (by Matthew Noel-Tod)

Click HERE to read a little about the film.

Coffee on a tuesday.

2011-08-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

Its weird to be equally happy and sad to have written something ...

As much as it feels nice to see my name in the index of a beautiful publication, I rather had a coffee in your garden on a tuesday...

2011-08-03T00:14:00.001-07:00

2011-07-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

and then you stop.

trying to.

what ever you were trying.

and then you wonder.

who ever was on the other side.

Mara Bueno at WATERFALL MAGAZINE

2011-07-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

If you are in BERLIN maybe you would like to swing by C/O Berlin and attend the launch of Waterfall Magazine 瀑布 Issue 4, which contains a short story I have written, hurray!! ♥

The launch will be today and tomorrow 2nd of July as part of the 'Book days Summer Festival'.
There is gonna be a few things going on, two photography exhibitions and lots of beautifully printed publication.

Oranienburger Str 35/36 . 10117 Berlin . Germany
Fon +49 30 28 444 16 0 . info@co-berlin.com
Daily 11 am — 8 pm . Admission 10/reduced 5 Euro

2011-06-12T13:27:00.001-07:00

...you never asked me to stay.

2011-06-09T01:45:00.001-07:00

Strangely, this title makes me feel a little uncomfortable.. I mean, the tittle and the picture go very well together... and the picture and the title go well on this blog too.. but somehow they feel very foreign.

like they don't belong to me.

I took this picture in a Hotel in Heathrow almost a year ago. Unable to fall sleep I wandered around with my camera and uploaded some of the pictures but decided not to publish this one.

A year can be a very long time... sometimes.

Distance, 68 Kilometers of Absence. (work in progress)

2011-05-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

I am working in an Installation/urban intervention that comments on the current state of violence in Mexico.

'Distance, 68 kilometers of Absence'

Is the physical representation of the 40000 assassinations that have taken place in Mexico since the 'war against organized crime' started 4 years ago. From the tragedy of a number that has become an statistic, with no name, age nor gender, 68 kilometers comes from multiplying 40000 times the average height of a Mexican man, 1.70 meters. The idea of measuring this absence with distance, comes from the realization that violence in Mexico has drawn a line between my desire to come back, and that keeps growing greater. A line of distance between the place where I grew up and the one I no longer recognize. It aims to make tangible a number that is impossible to understand just by thinking about it.

The first stage, measuring 68 metres, only 1% of the total, will be displayed as my participation in the international protest that calls for the immediate cease of violence from both, government and drug cartels.

Demonstrations of support have already started in Mexico and will culminate on the 8th of May internationally.

Please join the demonstration in LONDON. We will congregate at 11 am on Sunday 8th of May in front of the Mexican Embassy.

Mexican Embassy,
16 St George Street,
Mayfair,
London W1S 1FD

This demand for peace and justice with no political inclination was triggered by the mexican poet Javier Sicilia, after the recent assassination of his son, and is the follow up of the first protest held the past 6th of April which summoned 30 demonstration of support from the Mexican Civil Society around the country and 13 in different places around the world.

Click HERE, If you want to have a look at 'the way to peace' ('Ruta por la Paz'), which shows the path that is being walked by the manifestation already taking place since the 5th of May in direction to Mexico City from Cuernavaca, Mexico.

If you want to join the protest from another place in the planet, visit THIS PAGE and find your city.

Or if can't attend but would like to join in solidarity, there is a proposal for 'Poetic Action' that is very easy and can be done from your own house or office, all you need is an empty envelope and a stamp. HERE the easy instructions.

For the event information on facebook click HERE, and its version in SPANISH.

The past 2 post in this blog contain additional information and links if you want to know more about what is happening in Mexico.

DISTANCE

2011-04-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

I made a placard and cycled to the embassy, and there, looking at our tiny tiny group of people thought: one assassination + one assassination, makes two, and like that slowly and rapidly the number came up to 40 000. Maybe we, slowly and rapidly become enough, all of us.

It is very bizarre. I did not leave the country because of the political state it was, or the level of violence on the streets, but it is certainly now one of the main reasons that stop me from coming back.

It is really sad to realized that your family slowly stops asking you to come back, and suddenly they even suggest not to do it. Like if they ran out of good reasons other than them missing you.

It is very sad to have a shit life overseas and still think its potentially better than back home. I don't think I have given too much thought of how the prospect of coming back actually scares me.

It is not only because the majority of my adult life I have lived it away, and I have less than a hand full of friends left there, or because I fear my career would have no future, what actually scares the hell out of me is that slowly slowly, the whole situation there (the corruption, the assassinations, the poverty, the many injustices), will become such and everyday thing that it will be just normalized, and become immune to it probably after a few frustrated and pitiful intents to change it.

So I suddenly got really angry and thought, what the hell is going on?! Why am I so fearful of my country? why do I have so little hope and faith for it? why do I find it so sadly broken and decaying that I have stop trying to understand it and look away.

I dont know how much or little I can do from here, to start regaining some of that lost hope. Specially since I had actively given up on reading the news and stay informed.

While I was outside the embassy, I started to think of the distance, between London and Mexico, between the country I used to know and the one that has become.

Other distances have become shorter, like whit my family for example.

I though of the consequences of those distances.

Last week, I saw my dog being put down after an illness related to old age, on skype. It reminded me of the many things I am missing out, the ageing of my parents for example. And how somehow, that dog was to me 5 years old, like when I left almost 9 years ago, his life length has shortened.

Like the lives of those assassinated. Shortened.

I thought 40 000, is only a number.

I tried to imagine what it actually meant 40 000 shortened lives. Lives that have become this number, an statistic. Numbers can also mean distance.

And thought of how long in terms of distance can a shortened life measure.

MEXICO IN STATE OF EMERGENCY

2011-04-06T05:18:00.000-07:00

In Mexico, there has been nearly 40 000 assassinations in the past 4 years by the so called 'war against crime'. This anonymous civilians, that have become numbers and statistics, they represent each citizen of this country, reduce to an unprotected life, the life of an animal, of a being that can be violated, kidnapped, molested and assassinated with impunity.

TODAY there will be 30 demonstrations around the country and 13 in different places around the world to call for the immediate end of violence from both, government and drug cartels. Please join the demonstration, in LONDON, it will be at 5pm in front of the Mexican Embassy.

Mexican Embassy,
16 St George Street,
Mayfair,
London W1S 1FD

“One day they came for the blacks, and I said nothing. Another day they came for the Jews, and I said nothing. One day they came for me (or for a son of mine) and I had nothing to say.”

Bertholt Brecht, when the horror of Nazism

This in an international call from the mexican poet Javier Sicilia, after the recent assassination of his son, if you want to read his letter click HERE.

“Por nuestros hijos, por los que viven, por los que pueden ser víctimas mañana, por las mujeres de Juárez asesinadas, por tantos crímenes, por tantos inocentes caídos, vamos a las calles a exigirle a estos hijos de la chingada del crimen organizado que le paren, y a estos cabrones del gobierno, que respondan.”

"For our children, for the ones still alive, for the ones that could be victims tomorrow, for the women assassinated in Juarez, for the many crimes, for the many fallen innocents, lets go to the streets and demand this sons of bitches in the organized crime to stop, and the fuckers in the in the government to respond".

If you want information on the details of Demonstrations around the world click HERE.

2011-02-17T15:20:00.001-08:00

2011-02-16T15:13:00.001-08:00

2011-02-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

Good times for change

2011-02-14T12:08:00.000-08:00

the end and the beginning meet in a common place.

2011-02-13T13:04:00.001-08:00

2011-02-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

2011-02-10T11:56:00.001-08:00

2011-02-09T16:24:00.001-08:00

2011-02-08T17:23:00.001-08:00

2011-02-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

I love you dad.

2011-02-06T15:43:00.001-08:00

down and out in london and mexico

2011-02-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

2011-02-03T15:15:00.001-08:00

2011-02-02T11:34:00.001-08:00

2011-02-01T16:34:00.003-08:00

2011-01-31T08:06:00.001-08:00

2011-01-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

2011-01-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

2011-01-28T08:31:00.001-08:00

2011-01-27T12:31:00.001-08:00

2011-01-26T08:47:00.003-08:00

2011-01-25T11:27:00.001-08:00

2011-01-24T11:01:00.001-08:00

2011-01-23T12:20:00.001-08:00

2011-01-22T17:36:00.001-08:00

2011-01-21T05:23:00.000-08:00

2011-01-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

2011-01-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

julieta, happy birthday

2011-01-18T05:03:00.001-08:00

2011-01-17T06:48:00.001-08:00

2011-01-16T12:39:00.001-08:00

2011-01-16T04:16:00.001-08:00

2011-01-14T10:38:00.001-08:00

2011-01-13T07:59:00.001-08:00

2011-01-12T10:55:00.001-08:00

2011-01-11T05:24:00.001-08:00

2011-01-10T10:18:00.001-08:00

air pocket?

2011-01-09T23:23:00.001-08:00

2011-01-08T10:37:00.001-08:00

2011-01-07T12:32:00.003-08:00

2011-01-06T13:52:00.001-08:00

2011-01-05T11:27:00.001-08:00

2011-01-04T06:48:00.001-08:00

2011-01-03T12:23:00.001-08:00

2011-01-02T09:51:00.001-08:00

2011-01-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

no one's bed

2010-07-28T22:47:00.000-07:00

'How many ways can you say goodbye?
that was nothing
something

How many days, were in dreaming
in many ways just a lie?
In better days, I'd be dreaming
as my life passed me by

Now pardon me for trying
trying to tear apart

And pardon me for lying
it's just easy, so easy to start'

take me to a better place

2010-07-27T16:12:00.000-07:00

though another dimension

2010-07-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

again and again

2010-07-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

.. and if you fall, i just wont follow.

2010-07-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

THEM AND US. exhibition at 'The Rag Factory'

2010-07-03T02:59:00.000-07:00

If you missed the 'Super Graphics' exhibition last week, not all is lost, we have a little surprise for you.
We have another very exciting show coming from the 14th to the 17th of July at 'The Rag Factory' just off Brick Lane.

And if you did go to the show then you know there will be really great work, so bring your butt here cos we are showing new work as well as some of the favourites.

We will be having a shop so if you are still banging your head on the wall for not having buy that amazing limited edition print you have not to worry; but there is not many left so don't miss the second chance.

There will be cold Kopparbegs on the day of the Private View to make this summery show just perfect.

A little review by LCC

Super Graphics!! visual report...

2010-07-03T02:23:00.000-07:00

And after a very exciting week at LCC, we had to put the show down yesterday, so for those who missed it, I took a few pictures for you to have a look around.

It was 47 of us, showing two pieces each so if you wanna see individual pieces of each of us visit the 'Super Graphics' website where you can also find the work of the other five Graphic and Media Design pathways.

Here are some of my very favourite pieces, but the whole show was amazing, I have to say I'm really proud to have taken part of it. Click on images to enlarge, and for more details click on peoples names for a direct link to their exhibitions page.

'Comeback and tell me who you are' (top).

'Home is the Place you Left' (bottom)

Mara Bueno

'Orlando' Johanna Woolhead

Egija Zirapa

'Alice' Abigail Aked
'Pandora' Jacqueline Ford

Annu Kilpelainen

Lisa Roberton

Amy Friend

We also had a very cool SHOP, where you could buy limited edition work from all the pathways students.

SUPER GRAPHICS exhibition.

2010-06-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

Come to our Degree Show from this Thursday!

BA Graphic and Media Design 2010 show from all pathways:

Information Design
Typo/Graphic Design
Illustration
Interactive & Moving Image
Design for Advertising
Design for Print

OPEN Mon-Sat 10am - 6pm

PRIVATE VIEW THURSDAY 24th June 6pm - 9pm
(afterparty at Corsica Studios)

-------------------------------------------

ALSO there will be:
A READING ROOM!
LIVE WORKSHOPS
SHOP TO BUY STUDENT WORK

AND a hot catalogue that you can take home and cuddle.

http://www.supergraphics2010.co.uk/

visiting jacky

2010-05-01T03:29:00.000-07:00

collage with images from jaqueline ford

perverse repetition

2010-04-09T06:20:00.000-07:00

I dream of smells, bright colors. banging noises, bits of music, body parts, chunks of time, borrowed past lives, overlapped. So disgustingly overlapped. I wake up and the saddest bits of them all are real.

2010-04-09T06:18:00.000-07:00

SEWN IN AN ANIMAL’S BELLY

‘We must discover some sort of death, whereby this maiden may be endure long-term and bitter torment; so let us kill this ass and afterwards cut open its belly, and after removing the inwards, shut up the girls inside in such a way that only the head be left outside (this to prevent her being entirely suffocated) while the rest of her body be hid within the carcass.

Then, when this has been sewn up, let us expose them both to the vultures – a strange meal prepared in a new and strange manner. Now just consider the nature of this torture, I beg you. To begin with, a living woman will be shut in a dead ass; then by reason of the heat of the sun will she be roasted within its belly; further, she will be tormented with mortal hunger, yet entirely unable to destroy herself . Yet other features of her agony, both from the stench of the dead body as it rots, and the swarm of writhing worms, I say of. Lastly, the vultures that feed on the carcass will rend in pieces the living woman at the same time.’

2010-04-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

come back,
and tell me who you are

2010-04-04T03:32:00.001-07:00

I used to visit you in dreams, at will. We would make love under the sun. And then we would slit each others throats at once when awake. Now i dream of both. Dig and bury. Semen and Blood.

life is too short to try to become someone else.

2010-04-02T13:33:00.000-07:00

And I just am what ever I am at the time.

[Adjective] magazine

2010-03-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Another happy accident. While I was doing the photos with moon as the model for the victim an tyrant investigations, she asked me to take a few more for a personal project she has going on for a little while, [Adjective] magazine which I cant wait to see the first issue to get printed... so while this happens I accidentally appear in the magazine's blog, which is always exciting.

2010-03-15T10:53:00.000-07:00

2010-03-15T10:30:00.001-07:00

2010-03-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

I'll never leave you alone
Breaking is part of the bone
My heart will beat against yours
Making sure we never turn into stone

2010-03-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

Nothing about this dead could be measured by a common standard, and the contradictory impulses overtaking me in this circumstance neutralized one another, leaving me blind and, as it were, very remote from anything I touched, in a world where gestures have no carrying power, like voices in a space that is absolutely soundless.

the desired places

2010-03-12T07:21:00.000-08:00

A few buildings away from mine there is this little place. I don't pass by it very often, cos is in the opposite direction to the tube which seams to be the only place I go to near my flat. It is small and just very simple, I wish I could use it, I have forgotten what for, all in uni seams to be about sticking things in my sketchbook that demonstrate than when i graduate I will know what to do in places like this. And for every page I stick on I forget one little thing I wanted to do in the first place.

the second fatality (I need to find new things to say)

2010-03-12T07:11:00.000-08:00

'Horror is a shock, a time of utter blindness. Horror lacks every hint of beauty. All we can see is the piercing light of an unknown event awaiting us.'

taken from the notes on 'the unbearable lightness of being from Milan Kundera' at moon's blog...

the forbidden places

2010-03-07T14:15:00.000-08:00

....call me vertigo

remember that you must die

2010-02-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

memento mori

pictures and concept by Ignacio Diaz Romero.

maggots feed with dead love
I ate whatever was left

.... traces... Welcome Intruders

2010-01-30T14:08:00.000-08:00

.. a little advance of the pics from the 'WELCOME INTRUDERS' installation

... just cos i could not resist it... still gotta go through many many ..

and it might take a little while... but will get here...

hope you enjoy it... I did, very much

in this post, the work of Alia Ahmad, Jaqueline Ford, Mara Bueno, Moonkeum Kim and Sarah Culross

Chromakey exercise

2010-01-23T02:07:00.000-08:00

Last week, while the Well Gallery exhibition was being put up some of us had a workshop on Chromakey.. playing with green screens is fun... it makes me wanna come up with some silly project just to play with it... :)

'WELCOME INTRUDERS' EXHIBITION

2010-01-22T16:50:00.000-08:00

In a project that questions the notion of identity and the public and private space, the personal and the impersonal, three Illustrators moved in my bedroom and surrounded by many of my personal things they were asked to respond to a space charged with its own history and make it their home.

Leaving trace of their presence and having documented their findings, they would vacate the space after four days for the next intruder to come and build the next layer of their own territorial claim.

This exhibition is to celebrate their findings and their contributions. And you will be able to see the various stages of this installation through their eyes as well as mine.

During the exhibition a fourth intruder will be Video Performing adding the final layer.

Please note space will be restricted, so to avoid disappointment it is advisable that you confirm your attendance by emailing to marabueno@yahoo.com.mx with Welcome Intruders as the subject.

I will be very happy to see you there.
Thank You.

If you want to read the brief they responded to, click here.

'ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL' work in progress Exhibition

2010-01-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

So I got to show the first stage of the WELCOME INTRUDERS project which final installation will be shown on the 29th of January. So far so good...

Thanks to all those who came, it was a really fun night.

work by bansy and was thoughtful enough to make close ups of peoples work..

Annu Kilpelainen, picture by bansy

Adam Ggong, picture by bansy

Rach Taylor, picture by bansy

Guy Stanton, picture by bansy

Aaddaamm Ggoonngg, picture by bansy

Work in Progress Exhibition

2010-01-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

'ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL'

The Well Gallery

at the London College of Communication

in Elephant & Castle, SE1 6SB

Friday 15th January 2010

16:00 - 22:00

2nd and 3rd Year Illustration are holding an exhibition of all our work in progress this Friday the 15th just for the hell of it (because we LOVE doing extra work) so pop on down and have a look!

I will be exhibiting the first set of documentation of the ongoing project 'WELCOME INTRUDERS' .

and yes... there will be beer!

....so see you there at 4pm :)

Image by Amy Friend, who's work will also be exhibited

2010-01-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

2010-01-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

pointing to my home away from home..

2010-01-07T17:15:00.001-08:00

.the rest is in the centre.

... in the time of beauty

2010-01-07T16:32:00.000-08:00

...we dream of the summer when the freeze is gone.

CALL FOR ENTRIES. Territorial Claims.

2009-12-14T13:54:00.000-08:00

WELCOME INTRUDERS

This is an open invitation to take part in a project that questions the notion of identity and the public and private space, the personal and the impersonal. What makes a place your home?

Every time we move house we go through a process of choosing what to bring with us and what is left behind, in this process, not only 'what we need' is taken with, there is also the what we want, what we treasure and what makes us feel at home. This objects can follow us for several years, to many places, some people even have objects that bring to hotel rooms when they are abroad, something that makes them feel like they bring a bit of that idea of home with them.

But there is more to a 'home' than just objects, there is also rituals, the rearranging of the layout of the space for example by moving the furniture around, is a good way to make us feel we have some kind of control over the place, changing the walls colour, or in cases like in london where doing this might result in loosing your rents deposit hanging a picture often does the trick. There are many very personal rituals we follow to make a place a little more our own.

This project wants to investigate the need to belong to a place and the ways we claim this territories.

For this over the period of 4 weeks, I will invite 4 different people to move in my bedroom and make it their own. Each of them will have 4 days, during this 4 days they will be surrounded by many of my personal things, they will be invited to modify the arrangement of the furniture and will have to work around what is hung on the walls.

You will be able to add and contribute to the layout of the walls by changing the arrangement what is already hanged. The idea is to respond to a place which is got it's own history. You will be expected to live part of 'you' in the bedroom, traces of your presence. This traces will be regularly documented.

Each of the contributors will be given 2 disponsable cameras to record their findings and contributions through their own eyes and will be giving them back at the end of their residence.

This findings and contributions will later be selected and exhibited in the space and posted in this site with their name as contributors and a link to their website or blog (if relevant).

The residences will be taking place over January 2010 so if yo would like to participate and you would like more information please send me an email with a brief description of yourself and an approximate of the dates that you would be able to take part of the project.

To see more on 'territorial claims' click here.

accidents ... (mara bueno in Sang Bleu)

2009-12-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I was taken some pics by Adrian Wilson who is one of the editors of Sang Bleu Magazine; the shoot was for the Number 5 which will be out on February 2010 and is gonna have an article about Tomas, so you will be able to see my arms in some detail. Tomas is a friend who's work I absolutely love and is of great inspiration so I could not have say no. The session was fun but was hard not to be horribly shy..

anyway, almost accidentally my own work was also photographed, this left leg that was my practising stress free meat... and Adrian made a beautiful picture of it and posted it in the Sang Bleu's Blog, so I feel very privileged...

days of my quiet life

2009-12-07T16:04:00.000-08:00

I watched as you faded away.

2009-11-30T16:34:00.000-08:00

Absence

2009-11-21T13:20:00.000-08:00

In semiotics, a term is absent from a meaningful sequence of signs if it could potentially occupy a position in the sequence, and if its exclusion affects the meaning of the signs which are present.

Semiotics. Acrylic on newspaper

So come and sit on my box

2009-11-13T05:57:00.000-08:00

Pride is hard to swallow

2009-11-13T05:42:00.001-08:00

PRESENT ABSENCE

2009-11-10T11:15:00.001-08:00

the beautiful things have disappeared, the public did not want to keep them.

Handmade & Bound

2009-10-21T09:32:00.000-07:00

Hello, just to let you know about the "Handmade and Bound" zine festival taking place on sunday the 1rst of november, a few friends and I would be selling some goodies.. mine are still in the oven, but come! come! to the zine feast...

Handmade & Bound 2009
The next Handmade & Bound fair will be held on Sunday 1 November 2009 at:
St Aloysius Social Club
Corner of Eversholt Street and Phoenix Road,
London NW1
12 - 6pm
Free entry
Nearest tube: Euston

can you fake your reflection child?

2009-10-04T18:37:00.001-07:00

to be fooled

2009-09-26T16:29:00.001-07:00

one must have trusted

I'm not solving

2009-09-09T09:07:00.000-07:00