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Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog<\/p><\/div>\n
This \u201cable\u201d body fully reveals its tools of domination and becomes the implicit norm through which the relationship with the world is defined.<\/p>\n
If we imagined a wanderer with a different body, perhaps with a prosthesis or using a cane, not only as a symbol but as a necessity, or in a position that did not allow for visual dominance over the landscape, the interpretation of the work would change radically.<\/p>\n
In an attempt to subvert this interpretation, we can imagine a painting that represents the sublime not as a privilege of those who can \u201creach the top\u201d but as a universal experience that manifests itself in diverse ways, such as a wanderer who faces the landscape with a non-normative body or someone who experiences the sublime without needing to \u201cclimb.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sense of silent and contemplative triumph would be transformed into a reflection on bodily presence in space and on the barriers, visible or invisible, that define who can or cannot access such an experience.<\/p>\n
What Friedrich clearly conveys to us is that art, as commonly understood, is an intelligible and complex language which, by its nature, is a very elitist space, one in which normative bodies mostly operate, both as a public and as a professional.<\/p>\n
It is only with our greatest efforts and productivity that we can attempt to reach the highest peak.<\/p>\n
Expectations are very personal, dictated by our origins, sociocultural context, experiences, and bodies.<\/p>\n
I arrived in Barcelona seven years ago, and for me, migrating meant giving things a new name. It meant embracing my disability and living in a balance between autonomy and interdependence, concepts that didn\u2019t exist in my vocabulary.<\/p>\n
I was born with a genetic disease called osteogenesis imperfecta<\/i>, commonly known as brittle bone disease. Fractures, orthopedic devices, medical ID photos, waiting rooms, hospitals, and recovery time have been a constant, slowing the pace of my life, far from the competition and frenzy of the normative world.<\/p>\n
I know from experience that many professionals or non-disabled people won\u2019t accept this, but my body has taught me many things. I\u2019ve never felt the desire to have another and I’ve never thought: Why me?<\/p>\n
The first time I realized my body was a political body was when I took self-portraits standing up, without clothes. I was just over twenty at that time. I vividly remembered several moments from my childhood when I was photographed standing up, naked, with my arms open, gazing directly into the camera, while they played at taxonomy. They photographed, measured, and spoke about me as if I couldn\u2019t understand their language, and then they returned me to my mother\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n
Taking portraits of myself wasn\u2019t healing. Art doesn\u2019t heal anything, and to think it does is the most welfare-oriented thing normative people can assume. It was, as Paul B. Preciado would say [1]<\/sup><\/a> Paul Preciado (2024) Lorenza B\u00f6ttner, R\u00e9quiem for the norm. Spector Books<\/span><\/span>