¿Dónde está Bruno?/Where is Bruno?

Abstract

On 9 June 2019 Lukas performed in front of the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC for its initials in Spanish) the fusion of two of his most recent performances: Buscando a Bruno (Finding Bruno) and Llamado a la autoridad (Calling the Authorities). Both performances examine Lukas's brother's disappearance on 10 May 2018. Lukas has organized various political-performative actions aimed towards government officials in the judicial system to urge them to continue investigating and to fulfill the State's responsibility to missing persons and their families. He performed Finding Bruno for the first time on 21 June 2018 in front of the Mexican Embassy in Barcelona, Spain in order for the case to be resumed and channeled to the Special Prosecutor's Office after having been cold for almost a month. Since then, it has been repeated four times in Oaxaca, Mexico City and Valladolid, Spain. Thirteen months after Bruno's disappearance, information is still limited and any institutional investigations to find Bruno have been insufficient and inconsistent. The pain of Bruno's disappearance is a symptom of the systematic and naturalized violence in Mexico for the last twelve years and the uncertainty about when it is going to end. The actions of Lukas and his network of collaborators expose the crisis of the Mexican judicial system and its inability to solve cases of forced disappearance.