Page 47 - Nada temas, dice ella

Fear Nothing, She Says
Rosa Martínez
One of the most tricky aspects in- volved in the organising of an exhibi- tion is choosing its title. A title is a door open to meaning and to critical awareness; it is a promise of knowl- edge, revelations and wonders. It is a device, a synthesis, often cryptic and yet suggestive, of the journey to which the viewer is invited.
As Saint Teresa of Jesus was a pro- lific writer, I considered it inevitable that her own words should title the exhibition. I began to read her com- plete works in the hope that at some point a clear inspiration, a beautiful and at once forceful phrase would emerge from their pages. I also read many meaningful biographies of the saint, such as those by Olvido García Valdés, Rosa Rossi, Cristina Morales, Julia Kristeva and Kate O’Brien.1
I underlined books and articles that reproduced quotes from her writings. I attended the most diverse lectures during my research process that seemed destined to help me find the desired flash of inspiration. I heard many echoes, all of them filled with powerful resonances of questions on which this bold and creative woman could still enlighten us. But the precise words I needed for a title were still missing. Teresa was drawing near me and yet remained elusive.
At one point, however, I understood that as well as revising the significance of the saint’s legacy, an exhibition of contemporary art related to her figure required us to understand why Teresa is still a relevant figure, how is she related to spiritual, existential and political quests at the onset of the third millennium. I imagined that if she had been alive today and had seen how the scope of her messages had ex- tended thanks to these selected works, she would have discussed them pas- sionately and have understood them perfectly. I felt that I could do my work as I’m used to doing it, starting from my intuition and the knowledge that
I have acquired over the years, from my desire to learn and to educate the gaze, from my deepest admiration for her ‘genius for life’, for Teresa ‘passed from plane to plane of human experi- ence, always alert, always with all her mighty wits about her. She dreamt, she aspired, she laughed, romanticized and sinned; she suffered, both in body and spirit, as few can have done; she observed, she studied; she directed hu- man destinies; she mastered and ruled the intractable stuff of external life; she explored, accurately and modestly, the dangerous regions of her own
rare spirit and founded therein her “interior castle”; she saw God – and struggled scrupulously to interpret that “seeing” to us ... And the story of all this victory she left behind her in
47