When the artist Katharina Pfeil came to one of the sessions of “It’s just painting” with the proposal of working collectively around the German saying “Wenn das kind (schon) in den brunnen gefallen ist… was gibt es dann zu tun?” which can be translated as “The child has fallen into the well and now… what do we do?”, the project “The child in the well” arose, a multidisciplinary collective project conceived and carried out in Can Monroig around the reflections, sensations and emotions that the idea of the well provoked in the artists Abraham Calero, Katharina Pfeil, Manuel Santiago, Marie-Nöelle Ginard Féron, Robert Lopez Hinton and Vito Mardaras. The result of this work, after several months of weekly meetings, where photography, drawing, performance, painting and electronic music coexisted and interacted, was presented in Can Monroig on November 11, 2017.
First meeting
All working together: Vito Mardaras, Noëlle Ginard, Manuel Santiago, Katharina Pfeil, photo Robert López.
Vito, Noëlle, Katharina, Robert, Abraham and Manuel
Abraham Calero
Installation of Abraham Calero
“I got into the well… / I found a primary, primitive path. / Far from sophistication, from the circuit and from the security of the known. / Far from the light.”
Manuel Santiago
Manuel Santiago Ruiz
“We will disappear one after another / falling, falling / behind the children. / Adding absences, losses. /Lost / being the substrate / to germinate the void. / Again towards the sky, / where we keep the cry.”
Marie-Noëlle Ginard and Robert López
Photographic performance of Marie-Noëlle Ginard and Robert Lopez Hinton
“I entered the well to forgive and forgive myself. To search among the names that hurt the most. To repeat like a mantra the phrases I hated the most. To break the ties in a golden circle. To save the children trapped in the well. And when I came out I found Isaac, who without me knowing it, had been there from the beginning, watching over me, protecting me.”
Katharina Pfeil
Installation of Katharina Pfeil
“At first there was this question: “If the child has already fallen into the well, what should be done?”
And at the end she was still waiting for me. A monologue began. The first one. The questions suddenly came one after another to my head. Almost like a human being hearing multiple voices or successively, but from different individuals.”
Guiem Planells
Presentation of the historical text by Guiem Planells
“1392, January 15. Clara, a convert, formerly called Blanca, widow of Salomó Pelx, says that during the robbery of the Jewish quarter of Inca, some Jewish children were thrown into a well in said Jewish quarter, among whom died Isaac, aged 13, son of Salomó Pelx, son of Issac Pelx, who was wounded and killed in the destruction after the death of said Issac, grandson (ARM, AH, 65, f. 11v).”
Mallorca Zeitung
Opening of The Boy in the Well, November 2017
In our online store you will find works related to the boy at the well.
End of Vito Mardaras' performance during the opening
“Taking a vaulted room as a visual metaphor for the human skull, bearer of the mental dimension, a symbolic mind is constructed with its different levels of consciousness and the states and sensations of a mind that is lost in brutality and homicide are interpreted through sound.”