Bogotá, 2018-2019

Two-year-long Collaboration with la Red Comunitaria Trans (Trans Community Network) and Artúr van Balen (Tools for Action) supported by the Goethe Institut Bogotá.
A project by: La Red Comunitaria Tans, Artúr van Balen and Tomás Espinosa
Concept: Tomás Espinosa

Transinflable started as a collaboration between Red Comunitaria Trans (RCT), artist Tomás Espinosa and Artúr van Balen from the Tools for Action collective. Our idea was to intervene with an inflatable sculpture in the trans march that takes place in Bogotá.
The Trans March takes place in the Santa Fe neighborhood. This neighborhood is the home and workplace of many trans*, but it is also a place where they are murdered. For this reason, the Trans* March is held for one day a year in these streets to commemorate the “compañeras” who were murdered here. The Trans* March remembers all the trans* who have been killed by the violence, discrimination and transphobia in Colombia. This is where Transinflable came in.

Transinflable was a collective laboratory where different people came together to share ideas. The strategy was based on skill-sharing workshops and meetings where we discussed what we wanted to do, what we wanted to achieve with this intervention, and how we would make it happen. Starting with brainstorming sessions, small designs in paper and plastic, to scaling up sewing patterns for large designs. In the process of learning how to make an inflatable sculpture, it was possible to share knowledge and explore our own possibilities and understand our own place in society. Within this process, the group was able to learn from each other, connect and understand each other, and strengthen as a community.

Out of this process of reflection, discussion, and sharing came the idea of creating a trans* body for the march. But why this body? Because you can be killed just for having a trans* body, just for being a trans* woman or man. The trans* body has been obscured and interpreted through taboos or misunderstandings. Trans* bodies are bodies on which years of violence and discrimination have left their mark. Nonetheless, they are bodies of disobedience and desire.

Transinflable is about claiming visibility by claiming space in the public sphere, as is the work of Red Comunitaria Trans. Transinflable is also based on hope. The hope that all these collective processes could be the inspiration for emerging social movements and a way to stay together.