María Silvia Esteve — CORTEX

Exploring the connection between memory and trauma, CORTEX is an immersive video installation by María Silvia Esteve which conjures a labyrinthine forest immersed in a soundscape populated by living organisms.

The starting point for María Silvia Esteve’s forthcoming feature-length hybrid documentary MAILIN—based on the story of Mailin Gobbo, who was sexually abused for fifteen years by the priest at her school—the short film CORTEX evokes the atmosphere of a dreamlike forest, as in the telling of a fairy tale, driven by the quest to recover the memory of a forgotten past.

Imagined as a metaphorical vision of an individual’s subconscious, the installation is conceived as a sacred place where memory is transformed into an active organ that is in constant reflection. The different strata of our subconscious are evoked by a play of light and shadow that generates multiple densities and textures. As the forest is gradually engulfed by a dense red mass, the video installation brings about an ambiguous space which emerges from the contrast between light and darkness.
Through the diffuse presence of image and sound, María Silvia Esteve reproduces a metaphor for our own existential questions, generating a strange, hypnotic feeling that confronts visitors with their own existence. Set in a circular space with no spatial or temporal markers, the installation is conceived as a place without boundaries, highlighted by the use of transparent panels that interrupt the linearity of the location. In this way, the public becomes involved in a sensory space, becoming

immersed in the director’s dreamlike, reflective universe.

María Silvia Esteve

María Silvia Esteve is an Argentine director and producer. Trained in the arts and in opera, she develops experimental visual imagery focusing on stories about women led by women. Her films have premiered at Cannes, won the Locarno prize, and been screened at MoMA. The founder and president of the women’s audiovisual collective HANA Films, she was also awarded a prize by the Spanish Association of Cinematography Authors AEC, before her first feature documentary SILVIA had its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2018. Her film CRIATURA, won the Pardino d’oro for best short film d’auteur at the Locarno Film Festival 2021 and her short film THE SPIRAL, shown at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes 2022, was selected at New Directors/New Films MoMA, as well as the Hong Kong International Film Festival and IDFA.