Alicia Framis mixes elements from design, fashion, architecture and performance in her work. She belongs to the generation of socially engaged artists who, after the postmodernism of the 1980s, questioned the function and meaning of art in contemporary society. Framis believes that art’s potential to genuinely mean something, or to convey feelings and thoughts, is limited. In her work, and for this reason, she pursues direct emotional and physical contact with her audience and barely leaves any traces of her actions and performances behind. If she creates anything physical, then it is invariably something that invites interaction.
In one-to-one relationships with her audience, Framis seeks to create unique, intense moments in which ‘the magic of life’, as she calls it, becomes palpable. For The Dreamkeeper (1997), she spent forty nights making herself available to lonely people. They could telephone Framis and she would arrive at the caller’s home wearing a starry dress, carrying a sleeping bag and roll-up mattress, ready to supervise his or her dreams. On each occasion, she would take a photograph of the sleeping host or hostess using a camera obscura. Framis’ projects are extremely diverse, but all take aspects of contemporary urban life as their subject. For Framis, art is a tool for social change. Her work is therefore referred to as ‘social (or participatory) sculpture’ and belongs to the trend that Nicolas Bourriaud called ‘relational aesthetics’.
In the most comprehensive catalogue of Framis’ oeuvre to date, Alicia Framis: Framis in Progress (2013), her works from 1996 to 2012 are grouped into three categories: ‘social architecture’, ‘fashion and demonstrations’ and ‘wishes’. The book was published on the occasion of her eponymous exhibition in Arnhem and Innsbruck (2013) and in León and Bruges (2014). Billboardhouse (2000-09), a shelter for homeless people made out of paid advertising panels, falls under the heading of ‘social architecture’. 100 Ways to Wear a Flag (2007-08), a clothing collection fashioned from Chinese flags, belongs to the second category. Cartes al Cielo (2012) is a sphere-cum- letterbox in polished steel. This work, which falls into the category of ‘wishes’, is where letters can be posted to people who no longer have a (known) address on earth.
Framis is convinced that the only places that should be created or honoured, at all times, are those that recall historical atrocities, such as wars. Without these places of remembrance, society is in danger of making the same terrible mistakes. Guantánamo Museum (2008) includes design proposals for a museum on the site of the Detention Camp at Guantánamo Bay and an installation atop an orange plinth. The latter contains motorbike helmets equal to the number of prisoners at Guantánamo when Framis created the work. The ‘crowns’ of the helmets were cut away to negate their protective function. The installation is elucidated by the enumeration of the prisoners’ names, as listed by Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas.
With her Moon Life Academy project (2009, on-going), Framis challenges artists, designers and architects to develop products and prototypes for life on the moon, with the additional aim of also having a positive impact on Earth. Framis launched her most recent project in 2017. Forging an analogy with the internationally renowned real estate firm Century 21, she founded Century 22 Real Estate. Under this banner, Framis investigates the social status of non-binary families and housing typologies and, in this context, strives to create gender-neutral design and architecture.
