Belen Benavides Portfolio

BELÉN BENAVIDES PORT - FOLIO

CONTENTS

Personal Information

Architecture Works

Psychomagic Center for Tumbaco

Weaving Community: Grid Composition in Hybrid Building

Applied Design Works

‘Ruta del Sol’ Carpets

City Postcards: Chefchaouen and Valparaíso

Art Works

Habitar.é: Re-thinking the City from the Bodies’ Perspective

(From) La Planta with Love

I inquire into the idea of inhabiting (us) because after thinking and overthinking, I have realized that I do not know how to inhabit (me).

Because from that perspective I think; and more than anything, I think. Because from thinking, I do.

ARTIST - ARCHITECT - OR MAYBE JUST PERSONAL STATEMENT

Because after thinking, I still can’t find an answer in space. Because until I understand, I’ll do, I’ll write and I’ll describe. Because in relation to space, I want to understand how to feel (me/us), how to appropriate (me/us), how to discover (me/us). And from that position, I create (me).

My work arises from that ambiguous thinking; as well as ambiguous are its processes. I use architecture, installation, photography, drawing, writing... I do not have a specific medium, but I do use them as tools. Tools that bring me closer to understanding what happens around the idea of inhabiting, being the body a projection of space and vice versa.

When mapping the body itself, I map the space. All just for wondering if maybe, one day, I’ll understand (me).

BIOGRAPHY

1997. Architect and visual artist. The mixture of both disciplines and the ways of each discipline of thinking about body and space permeate her creative practices. Hence, she works from different media and sites, but always around the same interest as the origin of her processes. She investigates the idea of inhabiting(herself) by making use of narrative, poetics and cartographies to be able to think(herself), describe(herself) and understand(herself).

She received the scholarship of the faculty “L.B. Alberti” and the scholarship by agreement “USFQ-Senescyt”. She has worked in spaces related to culture, art, design and education. She believes in the ethnographic character of architecture and art, and therefore intends to work in both areas from an expanded practice. She lives and unlives; thinks and overthinks; writes and describes; creates and recreates from Quito, Ecuador.

information

Pictures of creative processes

2. PSyChOMAGIC CENTer

Year: 2020

Location: Quito (Tumbaco), Ecuador

Type of project: Spiritual Center

Instructor: José Miguel Mantilla

Graduation Thesis Project

GENERAL INFORMATION

SUMMARY

“Form is the entanglement of free-moving forces into patterns that operate as unity.”

Marseille Tarot Kabbalah regarding the definition of “form”.

Inspired in the spiritual practice invented by Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Psychomagic Centre is conceived for Tumbaco, a growing zone in the outer part of the city. Using as starting point his ideas about healing, poetic acts and creativity; the building concept revolves around the state of total healing of Psychomagic called the “flourishing”. In that way, the center creates a series of spaces inspired in the practic of Jodorowsky aiming to integrate de community by giving local people a place for creativity and their daily activities. Because it is considered the basis of Psychomagic, it takes as principal referencse the Tarot of Marseille, its symbolisms, its cabals and the definition of form that is conceived in them. This is how it is intended to explore the sacred geometry of this practice while using it to create a centre that opens up to its community and invites it to “heal”.

1. Inner View of the Project

2. Exterior View of the Main Entrance

3. Ground Floor Plan

4. Main Section of the Project

4. Diagram of People's Flow Towards the 'Box of Miracles'

5. Inner View of the 'Box of Miracles'

6. North - East Axonometric View of the Project

1. South - West Axonometric View of the Project

2. Pedestrians Flows in Public Spaces Diagrams

3. Exploded Axonometry of the 'Miracles' Box'

CENTER FOR TUMBACO

3. Weaving community:

Year: 2019

Location: Quito (Av. 10 de Agosto), Ecuador

Type of project: Hybrid Building - High Density Housing

Instructor: Ana María Carrión Gandara

In colaboration with: Doménica Gavilánez and Carolina Véliz

GENERAL INFORMATION

SUMMARY

This project is located in a problematic area due to the increasing abandonment of public spaces in the area by pedestrians and the increasing noise and traffic in the surroundings. With this in mind, the project is solved as a hybrid building that mixes the private housing program with a completely public program open to all users and passers-by. The idea of the project is to generate through the typology of the plinth a grid that elevates while generating openings and returning in useful program the occupied area through places free of appropriation for cultural, sports and recreational activities. This element protects the user from the noise and congestion of 10 de Agosto Street, which aims to help make their experience of the space of better quality.

As the grid rises, it becomes two towers and a bar destined to housing. These protect the “inner world” that is created and invites the community to pass and live within itself. In this way, it seeks to create a public space of stay instead of one of transit, as it currently is, in order for the area to be inhabited again.

1. First Floor Plan

2. View of the Plinth Entrance

3. Underground Floor Plan

4. Second Floor Plan

5. Third Floor Plan

1. Tower Composition

2. Housing Tower Designed in Project

3. Sample Apartment Types

4. D-D' Section of the Project

1. Outdoor View from Plinth

2. Project’s Model

3. View of Frontal Facade (Av. 10 de Agosto Entrance)

4. 'ruta del sol' carpets:

Year: 2021

Location: Ecuador

Type of project: Carpet Collection Design

Head of the project: María Isabel Paz Suárez

Part of a USFQ ‘Community Outreach’ Project

GENERAL INFORMATION

SUMMARY

As part of my internship in this project, I created a carpet collection inspired in “La Ruta del Sol”. One of its principal activities is the design of carpet collections. Consequently, as Guano artisans work is being lost due to the lack of interest in their products, my task was to create a design concept for them related to national identity that may not be reduced to folklore. With that in mind, I got inspired in my interest in the relation between territory and identity and created a series of designs based on “La Ruta del Sol”. “La Ruta del Sol” is a touristic route that crosses the most famous beaches of the country, converting it into an important symbol of the national imaginary. Although it has been renamed as the “Spondylus Route”, it is still known by local people as its original name.

As it is an element so present in the collective memory of Ecuadorians, it is used as the basis of the collection. For its development, it was selected a group of aerial shots taken from Google Earth. The work began by composing the reference shot and continued with its abstraction. After recognizing the principal lines and forms of that cenital landscape, the image was reframed and cut into pieces of the carpet formats size. The collection is conformed by the selected variations.

Guano project

'Ruta del sol' Carpets

5. city postcards:

Year: 2020

Location: Ecuador

Type of project: Postcards’ illustrations

Instructor: María Isabel Paz Suárez

Two sets: Vaparaíso and Chefchaouen

GENERAL INFORMATION

SUMMARY

This work was created as part of an Architecture course. The purpose was to deepen in the understanding of a place through drawing.

This work uses the idea of postcards as a way to connect image with identity and with territory. It used as a reference as their objective is to summarize the feeling and sense of a place in one image that condenses the experience of a place or, most typically, a city in specific. Hence, it is taken as object study two different cities connected only by their closeness to the sea: Valparaiso and Chefchaouen. Although having similar geographical situation, their culture creates a different landscape and feeling that have to be condensed in a drawing.

This exploration results in two sets of postcards illustrated with ink and watercolor, each one of six independent images. The cities are given a colour or group of colors that aim to recreate the atmosphere that each city has. Plus, for the images, they are selected not only iconic views that portray their relation with the sea but also common views that can be found in daily life. Each set recognizes principal daily life elements of those cities.

1. Valparaiso Postcard No. 1 (Railroad)

2. Valparaiso Postcard No. 2 (City view from cliff)

3. Valparaiso Postcard No. 3 (Heritage Building)

VALPARAÍSO

4. Valparaiso Postcard No. 4 (Residencial Area)

5. Valparaiso Postcard No.5 (Sea View and Housing)

6. Valparaiso Postcard No.6 (Arts Neighborhood)

1. Chefchaouen Postcard No. 1 (Port)

2. Chefchaouen Postcard No. 2 (Building and flowerpots)

3. Chefchaouen Postcard No. 3 (Commerce Area Street)

4. Chefchaouen Postcard No. 4 (Street)

5. Chefchaouen Postcard No. 5 (Door detail)

6. Chefchaouen Postcard No. 6 (Stairs)

7. Chefchaouen Postcard No. 7 (Flowerpot)

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6. habitar.e: re-thinking

Year: 2021 (On-going)

Location: Quito, Ecuador

Type of project: Mixed-media Artwork

Instructor: Paul Rosero Contreras

Graduation Thesis Project - In colaboration with Gabriela Garcés

GENERAL INFORMATION

SUMMARY

Habitar.é is an artistic project that arises from questioning the way in which what we know as “public space” is constituted in the city. The project shows a process of reflection that has mutated and has been nourished by the possibilities offered by art from different media. It is proposed to draw a direct relationship between the public space and the bodies to deepen the way in which this place is inhabited in order to enable a reappropriation of it through the feelings, ways of inhabiting and transit forms of the diversity of bodies. All for the sake of allowing the exercise of agency by the individual in community.

This process revolves around a collective moment that took shape through the ‘Habitar.é Urban Workshops’, born as a way of rethinking the city from feminist critical theories that rethink the right to inhabit the public and question the historical and architectural narrative that shapes spaces in order to decolonize them. Consequently, it is proposed a reflection process divided in 3 moments: bodies and cartographies, measures of these in relation to space and the possibility of projecting within it. The project does not seek to bring answers, but questions about the relationship of the individual and his affections in the city and the public, the way in which these have been molded and how to find the body in them.

3 1. Modulxrs Digital Sketches

2. Scanned Illustration of Hands

3. Pages Samples of Fanzine

MODULXR FROM MEASURING THE BODY

4. Modulars of Affections Furniture + Detail

5. Plasticine Model of one 3D Printing

“Modulxr” is thought to be a painting on wall artwork that appropriates of Le Corbusier’s Modulor, a symbol of heteropatriarchy in architecture and its measurement references, and modifies it according to the bodies of Ecuadorian women of different ethnic. The concept and digital sketches were developed by me.

“From measuring the body” is composed of two illustrations about measuring the body. The one shown was made by me with ink and wall paint.

“Unmeasuring” is a fanzine inspired in Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit book. Therefore, it is a guide with instructions to learn how to unmeasure. The intention is to question the symbolic language of measures that gives form to the spaces.

(UNMEASURING)

AFFECTIONS FURNITURE

“Affections Furniture” is intended to be a sort of game that asks the viewer to rearrange the modulars in order to transform them in a meeting artifact by enabling interaction between the audience. This was a co-creation with my partner conceptually and materially.

FINDING (ONESELF) FURNITURE

“Finding (Oneself) Furniture” is a series of models of furnitures for public space related to the notion of care. The concept of the series is my partner’s but I contributed with this model inspired in the idea of dealing with grief in public. It is supposed to give people a space to be comforted by themselves.

“Map of Affections” is an installation composed by two images of Quito’s map and colored wools. The instructions ask the viewer to interact and connect points of the maps with the wool, each of them representing safe or unsafe places for them in the city. The concept and material resolution is mine but its fabrication was in collaboration with my partner.

Bodies is an installation that illustrates archetypes of citizens who are rejected from public space. The afro woman, the indigenous woman and the queer person illustrations are mine. The two others are my partner’s illustrations.

MAP OF AFFECTIONS

BODIES BEYOND ‘THE BODY’

1. Map of Affections

2. Map of Affections Detail

3. Map of Affections Detail

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4. Afro-woman and Indigeneous Woman Illustration

5. Bodies Display Montage

6. Booklets + Fanzine Display Montage

7. Symbols Monotypes Display Montage

8. Queer person Illustration

9. Exhibition for Showing Advances

EXHIBITION OF ADVANCES

Symbols is composed of two monotypes that graphically synthesizes the gesture behind each topic. Both of them are of my authorship.

All of them were presented in the university’s gallery.

7. (from) la planta

Year: 2021

Location: Quito (Carapungo), Ecuador

Type of project: Site-specific Artwork (installation)

Instructor: Byron Toledo + Mariuxi Girales

Part of Artist-in-residence Program ‘La Planta” for Site-specific Art

GENERAL INFORMATION

SUMMARY

If the body can be conceived as space, can space be a body? Or better yet, a being with its own identity?

I begin my process by considering ‘LaPlanta’ as a space full of moments, memories, meanings and people who has passed through it; enough layers to open the possibility of finding an identity for the place.

I approach this search for a voice of the site through the notion of the postcard. With that, I find the excuse to communicate with ‘LaPlanta’ and to start an exercise of searching images and words that help me understand its nature.

In this way, a correspondence is drawn from notes attached to images of microlandscapes and she “answers me” as a collage-poem.

(From) LaPlanta, with love is a “learning to be” that aims to enable, in turn, a “let be” of the site.

This project was conceived as part of a program in an Art Lab held in a former industrial plant. The site conserves the ruins and signages of that industrial institution while new layers of art-related elements start to ocuppy the place. The edition in which I participated had as main theme the transition of usages of the place and its growing identity as an experimental laboratory for Arts.

1. Site-specific Artwork Appearance During the Event

2. Night Appearance of First Part of Artwork

3. Narrative Wall Text

4. English Translation of Wall Text

5. Artist’s Notes to La Planta

6. Details of Artist’s Notes

MY LETTER TO LA PLANTA

PLANTA

One day I spoke to La Planta, but she didn’t answer me. I spoke to her. Me, so full of realities She, so loaded with fictions

So I loaded her fictions. So I filled her with my realities.

I filled her with my affirmations and my questions With my feelings and my thoughts With my distances and my approaches

I allowed myself to look at her, I allowed myself to listen to her.

I allowed myself to get lost and see myself in her again.

I allowed myself to be I allowed her to stay

And so long I was in her... And so long she stayed in me...

That one day I spoke to La Planta... and she answered me

significa color en tu Amarillo plástico riesgo absorbente. paredes posibilitan capacidad precolombina de múltiple mutación y del hábitat

jardín creación y el proyecto artístico una ilusión pensada. La utilización de negro peligro no se respalda con experiencias.

Las rutas sugeridas desde la sobrevivencia permanecen. Surgen del moho nacional de emociones. Son contenedor de ficciones que, a su vez, impulsan la acción de ojos de emergencia.

actualidad, la indómita un símbolo exclusivos y reconstruida. vuelven a emergencia y en hábitat discusiones. la puerta cerrada.

En donde está la palabra, estos pajonales sirven de testigos. Activen en ellxs, cada vez más, materiales contaminados de fragmentos de cuentos. En este lapso se procederá, para esta muestra, el acceso solo a personal autorizado a los derechos creados con las facturas enviadas, las facturas que justifiquen que la información debe encontrar fabricante en el lapso de 24 horas. Una vez culminada la presentación, la cual presenta tres hamacas suspendidas aludiendo a la ventisca en la educación del descubrimiento de la cotidianidad en los caminos de emergencia, de no ser entregado lo solicitado de quienes visiten nuestros pensamientos, el desecho y la ruina trasitarán en La Planta.

Desde el principio en múltiples medios se les recuerda que la alteración del espacio, modif icado por la industria, la imaginación y la conexión curandera son un choque eléctrico que parece haberse contagiado de guías de remisión o atropellamiento en los procesos históricos. Siendo también un elemento que las búsquedas de un paisaje interpretado con la naturaleza local específica, la memoria geopolitica y la tecnología; establece sus propias reglas e interactúa con la memoria y la materialización de una idea.

Totalmente prohibido el ingreso. Se ha reutilizado y recontextualizado un tanque oxígeno en el sitio para el uso cotidiano para alcanzar una posible vida de la comunidad. Este singular objeto guarda el contacto y el olvido, contaminados por residir en un lugar que fue nuevas sensibilidades. En la actualidad, esta empresa de diluyentes y la hamaca en el contexto, al igual que todos, son susceptibles a comprender aquellos que los mueve como pulsador de alarma. Por eso, solo personal autorizado en este punto de encuentro.

ensucia las las pinta. significa color en tu Amarillo plástico riesgo absorbente. paredes posibilitan capacidad precolombina de múltiple mutación y del hábitat

De la escuela de espacios en tono cálido, se ganó el premio y una maestría en amarillo y negro. El presente rojo es un jardín creación y el proyecto artístico una ilusión pensada. La utilización de negro peligro no se respalda con experiencias.

Las rutas sugeridas desde la sobrevivencia permanecen. Surgen del moho nacional de emociones. Son contenedor de ficciones que, a su vez, impulsan la acción de ojos de emergencia.

El que ensucia las paredes las pinta. Conoce que significa cada color en tu trabajo: Amarillo papel, azul plástico y blanco riesgo absorbente. Las paredes posibilitan la capacidad precolombina de presentar la múltiple múltiple mutación y adaptación del hábitat

De la escuela de espacios en tono cálido, se ganó el premio y una maestría en amarillo y negro. El presente rojo es un jardín creación y el proyecto artístico una ilusión pensada. La utilización de negro peligro no se respalda con experiencias.

El cuerpo en el espacio es zona de descarga de químicos industriales y bellas artes. Las evidencias que permanecen de ello son almacenamiento temporal desde la reciprocidad. Las interrogantes de uso doméstico para suspender la crueldad tangible son llaves de emergencia vistas en la piel.

Las rutas sugeridas desde la sobrevivencia permanecen. Surgen del moho nacional de emociones. Son contenedor de ficciones que, a su vez, impulsan la acción de ojos de emergencia.

El contexto que los rodea, registra el desplazamiento y evidencia de nuestras áreas de riesgo. El permitir que el mapa de riesgos gestantes se les derrame, posibilita la capacidad de un vínculo de vapor que contendrá paisajes y salud. Este es un trabajo que, debido a no estar justificado, caracteriza todos los campos llenos de residuos de desarrollo.

Desde el principio en múltiples medios se les recuerda que la alteración del espacio, modif icado por la industria, la imaginación y la conexión curandera son un choque eléctrico que parece haberse contagiado de guías de remisión o atropellamiento en los procesos históricos. Siendo también un elemento que las búsquedas de un paisaje interpretado con la naturaleza local específica, la memoria geopolitica y la tecnología; establece sus propias reglas e interactúa con la memoria y la materialización de una idea.

Totalmente prohibido el ingreso. Se ha reutilizado y recontextualizado un tanque oxígeno en el sitio para el uso cotidiano para alcanzar una posible vida de la comunidad. Este singular objeto guarda el contacto y el olvido, contaminados por residir en un lugar que fue nuevas sensibilidades. En la actualidad, esta empresa de diluyentes y la hamaca en el contexto, al igual que todos, son susceptibles a comprender aquellos que los mueve como pulsador de alarma. Por eso, solo personal autorizado en este punto de encuentro.

El cuerpo en el espacio es zona de descarga de químicos industriales y bellas artes. Las evidencias que permanecen de ello son almacenamiento temporal desde la reciprocidad. Las interrogantes de uso doméstico para suspender la crueldad tangible son llaves de emergencia vistas en la piel.

El registra evidencia de el mapa se les capacidad vapor y salud. debido campos

1. Collage-Poems made out of Signages and Wall Texts of La Planta

2. “Loaded Images” made out of Superposition of Micro-Landscapes of La Planta

3. Second Part of Artwork Display Montage

4. Right Part of Display Montage

LA PLANTA’S “ANSWER”

En la actualidad, la naturaleza indómita figura como un símbolo de recursos exclusivos y evacuación reconstruida.

1 vez por mes vuelven a la salida de emergencia y se convierten en hábitat para abordar discusiones. Mantener la puerta cerrada.

En la actualidad, la naturaleza indómita figura como un símbolo de recursos exclusivos y evacuación reconstruida. 1 vez por mes vuelven a la salida de emergencia y se convierten en hábitat para abordar discusiones. Mantener la puerta cerrada.

En donde está la palabra, estos pajonales sirven de testigos. Activen en ellxs, cada vez más, materiales contaminados de fragmentos de cuentos. En este lapso se procederá, para esta muestra, el acceso solo a personal autorizado a los derechos creados con las facturas enviadas, las facturas que justifiquen que la información debe encontrar fabricante en el lapso de 24 horas. Una vez culminada la presentación, la cual presenta tres hamacas suspendidas aludiendo a la ventisca en la educación del descubrimiento de la cotidianidad en los caminos de emergencia, de no ser entregado lo solicitado de quienes visiten nuestros pensamientos, el desecho y la ruina trasitarán en La Planta.

En donde está la palabra, estos pajonales sirven de testigos. Activen en ellxs, cada vez más, materiales contaminados de fragmentos de cuentos. En este lapso se procederá, para esta muestra, el acceso solo a personal autorizado a los derechos creados con las facturas enviadas, las facturas que justifiquen que la información debe encontrar fabricante en el lapso de 24 horas. Una vez culminada la presentación, la cual presenta tres hamacas suspendidas aludiendo a la ventisca en la educación del descubrimiento de la cotidianidad en los caminos de emergencia, de no ser entregado lo solicitado de quienes visiten nuestros pensamientos, el desecho y la ruina trasitarán en La Planta.

5. Left Part of Artwork Display Montage

6. Details of Display Montage

7. Display Montage of La Planta’s Answer

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