Don't Follow Me, I Am Also Lost

This project is a pictorial-theatrical experiment in which over four years (2021-2025) I wrote a play simultaneously with my pictorial work. The simultaneous use of different languages provokes a radical change both in the way of experiencing the creative act alone and in the experience of living it as a spectator. The result was a play of nine scenes with eighteen paintings and a sculptural installation of one hundred ceramic paper airplanes suspended on the stage of a theater, where the actors pass through them and, through text, lights and sound, the audience is immersed in a narrative experience that moves between dream and reality.
The play follows The Artist, a painter obsessed with her own failure, who finds herself trapped in a spiral of doubt after presenting a work whose speech was not well received. While talking to The Girl, a child version of herself, they are both dragged by a Rabbit and a Cat into an absurd and fragmented world. In this dream space, the characters constantly question identity, truth and the validity of art, exposing the artist's insecurity and need for approval. On her journey through impossible bathrooms, living paintings and a forest full of paper airplanes that repeat critical voices, The Artist desperately seeks to correct her destiny: rewrite her speech, recover applause and become an "icon of Painting." However, each character — Alice, the Hatter, the Teacher, the Blind Cook — shows her a different side of her own internal distortion: the fear of ridicule, imposture, the temptation to betray herself to please, and the abandonment of her most vulnerable part, represented by The Girl. The journey culminates when the girl, transformed into The Queen, confronts The Artist for having left her behind. The magic clock that could turn back time is destroyed, revealing that there is no turning back when a person betrays themselves. The Artist dies, consumed by the consequences of her choices, and the Queen admits to being just as lost. The work raises a reflection on fractured identity, responsibility towards oneself and the price of trying to fit into a world that demands perfection while disfiguring what is essential.
The theatrical production took place at Circulo Teatral in Mexico City on August 1, 2 and 3, 2025.
Pictorial and sculptural work, dramaturgy and set design: Sofía Ibargüengoitia
Direction and lighting: Juan José Tagle
Production: Oralia Sáenz
Dramatic advisor: Oscar Chapa
Assistant director and sound design: Sebastian Guerra
Costume design: Martina Yitani
Alice / The Teacher / The Blind Cook / The Queen: Cecilia Toussaint
The Artist: Assira Abbate
The Girl: Lucía Tinajero
The Cat / The Mad Hatter: Hamlet Ramírez