Marcela Torres

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Residing in a transitory journey between Utah, Illinois and New York. Torres received a BA in Sculpture Intermedia and a BFA in Art History from the University of Utah, continuing their studies in MFA in Performance form School of the Art Institute Chicago. Torres has performed at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, NE), The Momentary (Bentonville, AK), Fringe Festival (Detroit, MI), Experimental Actions (Houston, TX) and Time Based Arts (Portland, Oregon). Torres has exhibited work at Recess (Brooklyn, NY), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL) UW-Parkside University (Kenosha, WI) , Tropical Contemporary (Eugene, OR), Petzel Gallery (NYC, NY) In 2022 Torres is a Chicago Dance Maker Forum Lab Artist, a Art/Industry resident at John Michael Kohler Arts Center and a Fellow at Franconia Sculpture Park.

Artist Statement
I mobilize sound, sweat, and emotional projection to build sensorial performances. These experiences provide a portal into the sensoria of marginalized bodies and are designed to be ingested by viewers as physiological memories. Viewers are invited to share experiences of stress, fear, and celebration to simulate the heterogeneous embodiment of Queer POC, Latinx, and Indigenous people.

The work is an exorcism.  As I witnessed the prevalence of racialized murder, it triggered physical mourning. While grieving, I felt a masochistic desire to recreate their pain to bond us. This intention evolved as I began to value self-care. In recent work, I rely less on pain as the narrative and more on layered sensorial triggers. Through strength-building exercises and community rituals, I propose forms of reparations. I use self-care methodologies to share reparative tools with others and to exorcise the intergenerational trauma of colonization.

My physical research builds on Mesoamerican Indigenous rituals, racial struggles within the United States, and contemporary Mexican American diaspora. The work extends beyond contemporary experience to uncover deep pools of colonial trauma remembered through bloodlines. In addition to performances based on Muay Thai training, my work manifests as sound performances, sacred scent rituals, community workshops, and leather sculptural objects. I use code-switching as a tool to confront the fluctuating roles of violence, care, and transcendence. From places of intense combat, soft collective vulnerability emerges.