CAC Brétigny

A trilingual edition, Bestiary of Tonguelets / Bestiario de Lengüitas / Bestiaire des petites langues is Mercedes Azpilicueta’s so-far most comprehensive—and still evolving—project. It began in dialogue with curator Virginie Bobin in Paris in 2017 and follows the thread of a script written for a performance that has yet to take place. Using local, obsolete knowledge systems, “neobarroso” poems, failed translations, and ambiguous ingredients, Bestiario de Lengüitas stages a choir of grotesque characters who try to maintain chaos and excess in a world calling for order, efficiency, and transparency. Azpilicueta pays a tribute to “proto-scientific” knowledge primarily disseminated among women—such as midwives and witches—before religion, capitalism, and modern medicine silenced them. The uncanny contaminations that occur between plants and bodies were fed by several encounters in the streets of Paris, the Botanical garden of Madrid, and the magical forests of Bolzano—thus generating a new embodied cartography of knowledge that transpires through scripts, drawings, and artworks by mobilizing storytelling, fables, and the reactivation of ancient rituals.


Book concept: Mercedes Azpilicueta and Virginie Bobin
Guest authors: Virginie Bobin, Faye Campbell, Simone Frangi, Elena Lespes Muñoz
Artwork: Mercedes Azpilicueta
Translators: Luisa Arditi, Florence Baranger-Bedel, Virginie Bobin, Camille Cornu, Annie-Rose Harrison-Dunn, Vir Andres Hera, Sofia LeBlanc, Elena Lespes Muñoz
Processing Process
Series editors: Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin
Editorial coordination: Angeliki Tzortzakaki (artistic team) and Faye Campbell (K. Verlag)
Copy editing: Luisa Arditi, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Virginie Bobin, Laura Boullic
Proofreading: Faye Campbell and Lauren Lee
Book & Series design: K. Verlag with Wolfgang Hückel and Katharina Tauer
Jacket guest designer: Vanina Scolavino
Printed in the European Union
© 2024, Mercedes Azpilicueta and K. Verlag
The publication was made possible by
Stichting Niemeijer Fonds
Nogueras Blanchard
CAC Brétigny
It was published with the support of
Fondation d’entreprise Pernod Ricard.
English with French and Spanish parts
Distribution: K. Verlag
Publication: February 2024
14 x 21 cm
204 pages
Full color images
Softcover
ISBN 978-3-947858-52-1
€29