Luciano Encina Benjamín

“My name is Luciano Benjamín Encina, I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I received my degree in Plastic Arts.

I graduated in Plastic Arts at the Faculty of Arts UNLP. I like to say that I am an Artist, since I started my career I have been able to appropriate concepts like participatory, activator, reflexive, open work, work manager, editor, artist, researcher, transdisciplinary, dissident within art. Nowadays I consider them as my own manifesto when making my work and presenting it to different audiences. These concepts have been mutating between the theory and the practice of my work.

In my work, research and reflection on everyday political life intersect, which decant in collective or individual exhibitions, and always have as a main factor the participation of the people. I find the debate between peers and the connection with the self-referential important, as a way of generating an exchange, capable of offering new possibilities of what we live and perceive possibilities of what we live and perceive, generating infinite questions and answers.

I think of the places of displacement as encounters, which can unite the museum, the gallery, the cultural centre, the work space, with the street. I think that our work can't only be seen in a reduced space (often excluding) but has to expand as much as possible. Today, being far from my city has led me to new horizons and reflections, the most important of which has to do with territory. As a trans person, I think the most important thing is to be in motion. To understand where I come from, with its complexities, and to learn from others. I think of my own being transatlantic as communication, to be able to speak without words, and to believe also in its strength. In conclusion, the projects that I carry out or plan are a place of refuge that I have found, and I wish to share it, coming from a place of tenderness and action.

I do illustration work, painting (especially portraits), I have a strong love for painting and graphics. I edit publications (fanzines), I make tattoos and collaborate in the design of modelling garments. I have worked as an assistant for exhibitions, events and festivals. It's important for me to learn not only from theoretical sources but also from my peers in horizontal practices that escape institutional norms.”