This work is split into two complementary processes.
- The book
- The installation
Izenak izana egin means ‘the name defines the being’. This founding idea stresses the non-existence of something original and the instruments used to create meaning from as early as childhood.
I start with a (children’s) story based on two forenames. One, Larraitz (Basque), is mine, and the other, Tenoch (Nàhuatl, from the Aztec period), is my son’s.* I see the act of naming someone or something as an act of aesthetic creation/production, and as an act of positioning with the place or person and the relationships sought in different contexts.
This is how I got interested artistically in the aesthetic etymology of Náhuatl and Basque forenames. I sought to question the possible meanings of some names from a more artistic than linguistic perspective, considering their visual/poetic but by no means less real power.
I have found various different interpretations and meanings for both Larraitz and Tenoch, so much so that I deduce that there is no one clear meaning. Using this method of interpreting a now distant origin, I want to draw links to enable other meanings.
