Imprenteros, Family Archives and Embodied Memory

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of Imprenteros (2018), a theatrical play written, directed, and performed by Lorena Vega alongside her brothers. Drawing on the notion of “biodrama” (Tellas, 2002) and situated within a broader constellation of artistic practices, the work’s protagonists—positioned as “killjoy daughters” (Ahmed, 2019)—delve into the remnants of the family archive, producing politically and affectively charged readings that enable singular aesthetic experiences. The analysis traces the various ways in which the seemingly irretrievable is staged, examining the bodily languages and inscriptions mobilized in the process, the effects generated by the juxtaposition of heterogeneous materials, and other strategies articulated through the montage of voices, spaces, and temporalities, as well as through the memories embedded in the question of the familial. The proposed approach emphasizes the archive as residue, as a material and affective force capable of summoning and evoking fragments of the past in the present, and its staging as a device that connects intimate family narratives with broader social threads, creating a new public and collective event—a possibility for experience. The paper also addresses the significance of biodrama and performance in contemporary theatre and in other practices where the construction of family imaginaries emerges.