In October 2008 a conference in San Salvador, Bahia, Brazil entitled “Corporcidade: Debates on Urban Aesthetics” was organized by the Federal University of Bahia.  They initiated a debate in urban aesthetics between the fields of arts and urbanism, interweaving cultural policies and urban areas.  The debates intended to discuss how our understanding of the human body, arts, and urban environment affect our behavior and shape the creation of knowledge in several fields, especially the visual arts, dance, architecture, and urbanism.

Saskia Jordá and Simón De Agüero, conceived the following project titled Symbiosis.  It consisted of a movable installation/urban intervention that explored the relationship between the body (individual and collective) with the built environment.  Rectangles of fabric, much like hammocks, were to stretch from and fold around corners of buildings, lamp posts, signs and gates, creating pocket-like organisms to be inhabited by the human body – the performer, the viewer, the passer by.  These organisms, while inhabited, would act like second skins, protective elements, and connective tissues, invoking conversations about their symbiotic nature with the built environment.  While the social organisms are uninhabited, the interdependency between the “actual body” (city and inhabitants) and the “constructed body” (symbiotic organisms and participants) was emphasized by the disembodied space.  The public body is an essential element for the vitality of the built environment.

Symbiosis was proposed as a corporeal experience, a splash of color, a collective experiment pulsating, shifting, and migrating through the streets of Salvador, Bahia.  Symbiosis was to be a collaborative project by two multidisciplinary artists, along with local volunteers, participants, and dancers.  Symbiosis was a concise metaphor to examine the urban aesthetic by creating a space where the city’s infrastructure would be emphasized, inviting the attention and analysis of its inhabitants and spectators.  The urban landscape would be essential to the content of these installations and would make each experience unique to Salvador, Bahia in its historic and contemporary life.  This migratory experiment would take place over the course of two - three days, exploring the areas between the more historic Pelourinho and the newer Federal University of Bahia campus.