Material Resistances: Waste as an Affective Device

Abstract

The projects Metástasis and Ayni explore, through a research-creation methodology, the relationships between the body, territory, and residual material, combining design and visual arts practices. Metástasis critically examines the coloniality of nature and the destructive expansion of humankind, presenting it as a cancer that contaminates and transforms bodies and environments. Ayni shifts the focus to the connection with the inanimate -especially rocks- from an ethic of reciprocity inspired by the Andean principle of ayni as a form of collaboration among people. Both projects propose a way of inhabiting the world through active observation, generating affective bonds with what is usually considered waste or worthless matter. They work with waste as a significant material and bearers of memory, as well as the possibility of symbolic reparation. Concepts such as affect (Deleuze), tenderness (Tokarczuk), and geo-affect (Bennett) illuminate the sensitive ways of relating to all that exists. These works do not represent the environment, but rather touch it, embody it, and think about it with an expanded sensitivity, challenging hierarchies between body, matter, and space and proposing new forms of coexistence and care.