Aprender Ser Ese Ser

Aprender Ser Ese Ser (‘To learn to be that being’) is a pop-up performance by Federico Protto that emerges from the artist's book of the same title. In the performance, a selection of writings is interwoven with songs, invoking a cabaret-esque, yet tender landscape. The audience is invited to glimpse at the ‘cositas’ that the ‘diablito’ does; the deals and affairs of that fragmented imp from deep within, fostering emotions and caressing memories.

The publication gathers three years of artistic research developed within the project MAPA, tracing a triangle of concerns: colonialism and migration, love and belonging, and art and labor. The book unfolds through personal stories, performance texts, research-based observations, diaries, and poems — a layered composition that mirrors the complexity of migratory experiences and intra-colonial memories. 

• Federico Protto (he/they) is an Uruguayan artist based in Brussels. His work encompasses performance, textiles, music, and research, through which he explores transcultural and transgenerational experiences of migration. He is interested in understanding multidisciplinary formats as tools for rematriation. His projects have been shown at Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers (FR), DeSingel (BE), Centro Cultural de España de Montevideo (UY), and Halle für Kunst Lüneburg (DE), among others. He studied fashion design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and artistic research at a.pass in Brussels.