Mudas is a conceptual installation-performance where a single, fresh banana leaf is pinned to the wall and left to wither over days. First activated in Mexico City (2013) and reiterated in unstable exhibition contexts across Latin America and Europe, Mudas represents an archetypal socioplastic gesture: minimal, situated, affective. The work bypasses symbolic overproduction in favor of metabolic unfolding—the leaf yellows, contracts, releases aroma, and eventually becomes a skin of memory on the gallery wall. Each iteration is documented only through visitors' proximity, scent, and breath. Rooted in the Socioplastics framework, Mudas reorients installation toward vegetal rhythm and affective temporality. It functions as a situational fixer, where local context (culinary, botanical, architectural) becomes inseparable from the meaning of the gesture. The banana leaf—traditionally used to wrap tamales—becomes a carrier of both culture and decay, inviting spectators to inhabit the slowness of material transformation. The installation often includes portraits of visitors beside the leaf, framing presence as co-authorship. In the canon of United Nations of Art, Mudas aligns with works like El Dorado, Blue Bags, and Broth—radically simple relational devices that generate ephemeral publics and rewrite aesthetic attention. Rather than resisting entropy, it welcomes it, making rot an ally in the politics of presence. (Lloveras, A. 2010–2025) antolloveras.blogspot.com - mudas, socioplastics, banana leaf installation, vegetal temporality, ephemeral sculpture, smell-based art, Mexico City, united nations of art, unstable installation, situational fixer, slow decay drawing
