The Artist:
Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa

The Lowdown:
Performance art is alive and well in Vancouver, and Ramirez-Figueroa is one of this city's most committed and provocative practitioners. He has been commissioned by the Vancouver Art Gallery to create a performance work in dialogue with Franz West's Passstücke sculptures and furniture, now showing at the VAG.

Coordinates:
Ramirez-Figueroa's performance of Germinating Suns will take place at 9 p.m. on Friday (August 26) at the Vancouver Art Gallery, as part of the FUSE events. In addition, author Michael Turner will present his lecture Working the Body: Sex with Michael Turner at 7 p.m., and MainDance will perform at 8 p.m.

Process-oriented:
Space and time figure prominently in Ramirez-Figueroa's conceptually oriented yet largely improvised live performance work. He has presented work in a number of spaces that wouldn't necessarily be considered art venues and looks to complicate the meanings of an action or gesture. A single performance might comprise theatrical narrative, childlike fantasy, audience participation, self-mutilation, and feats of endurance. The artist frequently uses props and introduces additional modes of perception-even smell-in forging a dynamic and at times difficult relationship with his audience.

What it all means:
"Much of my work originates in my experience as a child during the war in Guatemala. I am interested in how trauma works and the way people come to acknowledge it or totally deny it," says Ramirez-Figueroa in a recent interview. "I'm also interested in ideas of excess as they relate to empathy, unity, or even humanity. West's sculptures are particularly intriguing in that they are presumed to be innocent or neutral."