Diego Ramírez





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I am a ‘diaspora’ Latinx. Hola. It means everyone back home thinks I am basic

IN DEVELOPMENT

Contact High curated by Anador Walsh, Gertrude Glasshouse
Multicultural Arts Victoria
 Performance/Installation, 2023


"I am a ‘diaspora’ Latinx. Hola. It means everyone back home thinks I am basic" is a live performance featuring a devil breaking a black piñata. Every time the devil hits the piñata, it responds with a noise that resembles a grunt, to make it seem like the object is suffering. Indeed, Ramírez corrupts his childhood memories breaking piñatas to resemble a sadistic scene, amplifying the darker connotations of this festive ritual.

This performance began as a subtle image of pandemic (from the god Pan) that reflects on the nexus between North-South relationships, disease, and capitalism. However, Ramirez’ re-shifted this focus over time as a satire of diaspora art in alignment with his wider push and pull with identity politics, as evidenced in his writing.  It also draws from his prior research on the evolving iconography of the devil in art history.

The work is made in collaboration with Zamara Zamara on fabrication and Bonnie Cummings on sound. This project is funded by Multicultural Arts Victoria, as part of their Represent Commisions, scheduled for a 2023 presentation in Contact High curated by Anador Walsh. 

Vampires of the Earth 

IN DEVELOPMENT

MARS Gallery
Various mediums, 2023


Vampires of The Earth is an exhibition inspired by the social mediatisation of petrolium company Pemex’s fire in the Gulf of Mexico in 2021. “The day that underwater gas pipe burst, I received a hilariously performative message checking in on me,” says Ramírez, “a drop of oil came to mind, like a little tear...falling to hell.” The works in the show take this anecdote as a departure point to look at the poetry of crude oil, comparing it to a drop of blood that allures the vampire or a tear that afflicts the melancholic. While seeking to make invisible meanings visible, in the same way that fire makes gas in a broken pipe seeable. Indeed, from the voracity of extractive capitalism, to the performance of feelings on social media, Vampires of The Earth is about the dead, who carry on living.

Following this organising logic of undeadness, the show employs mediums such as neon, which mimic the vampire’s cycle of awakeness and slumber, by requiring electricity same as this creature necessitates blood. While also also incorporating black reflective surfaces that allude to the vampire’s inability to gaze at its own reflection, suggesting the exploitation of fossil fuels are a mirror of our image. Finally, it mines wellness infographics to re-encode the messages of care culture with a death drive – as if infected by the dark gift of vampirism. 

To touch one another with the lips

IN PRE DEVELOPMENT

Available For Opportunities 
 Video, 202X


This film shows the moment two hetero lovers kiss for the first time, only to discover one of them carries a ‘sonic virus’ that distorts hearing upon the sharing of saliva. Located within the vampire genre, this work trades in the aesthetics of right wing extremism: a white man in his early 20s, who unbeknown to his date is a white supremacist, touches lips with a white woman of similar age, in a campus dorm, who is a vampire. This encounter begins with a humorous conversation that unfolds as the camera slowly reveals subtle objects in the room, that suggest the male kisser is a covert extremist. Once infected with the dark gift from the female kisser, he suffers from an extreme form of cognitive distortion, which manifests on the screen as an experimentation with sound and image. In ‘To touch one another with the lips’, the vampire is a fascist ideology and transmission is radicalisation. Thus, the work purposely trades in a couple that epitomises the target of identity politics.


This work is based on Ramírez essay The Monstrous Kiss and Its Perversions, which looks at the history of kissing as a community practice in early Judeo-Christianity, where he discusses media that disrupts this legacy, by turning kissing into an act of division rather than union. The vampire’s bite epitomises this perversion as an osculation that inverts values of social harmony.  

Snowflake 

IN PRE DEVELOPMENT

Available For Opportunities
Various Medius, 202X


This suite of works reference idioms with materials, such as ‘losing one’s marbles’, to depict emotional states of mind. The artist situates this interest in the Right’s accusation that the Left is made of snowflakes, taking this contempt as a point of departure to investigate emotional sensitivity. A typical work in this series consist of a modified frame containing marbles that have been coated with resin, to immortalise a fleeting moment of perfect turmoil. Since 2021, Ramírez has conducted several  experiments in this vein, which he has released as individual works for group exhibitions. 

This project is motivated by Ramírez’ prose writing, which often incorporates pathos through a comical lens. Seeking to translate this creative senbility into his arts pratice, he began employing marbles for their ability to simultaneously convey humour and distress. It is also an opportunity to explore the melancholic dimension of his key interests, such as the gothic suffering associated with the vampire. While connecting it with his work in the area of cultural criticism. 
Ramirez acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the Land where he lives and works, the Wurundjeri people. He pays his respects to Elders past, present and emerging of the Kulin Nation.