gorigori

This project examines traditional Spanish mourning practices alongside emerging digital rituals, using the concept of gorigori from Federico García Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba as a foundation. According to the Royal Spanish Academy, gorigori is a colloquial noun for a funeral chant. It also serves as a euphemism to avoid mentioning death directly. The expression is common in phrases such as “cuando canten mi gorigori” (“when I die”). Furthermore, gorigori represents Spain’s oral history, mourning rituals, and folkloric traditions.

Trained in Journalism, Macarena Magaña Villar investigated the intersection between folklore and the highly mediatized world. Drawing from a personal experience —a Google Street View image of herself and her mother discovered after her mother’s death— she reflected on how the virtual realm has re-ritualized mourning. Numerous people online seek to reconnect with the deceased. These digital practices mirror traditional rituals through recurring patterns, where mourners turn to online communities to externalize and process their grief.

After two years exploring this phenomenon, the artist reflects on contemporary digital mourning. By examining traditional Spanish funerary customs—such as wakes, their symbolism, and iconography—the work addresses the growing issues of alienation and the “loneliness epidemic.”

The installation centers on a site-specific installation featuring a video interview with Carmela, a 84-year-old woman from Quesada (Jaén). In conversation with the artist, she reflects on her experiences with death and how mourning rituals have evolved since her childhood. A second new work explores the esoteric connection between digital media and shifting online grief through the concept of “digital mourners.”

Historically, professional mourners (from the Spanish plañir and Latin plangere) were women hired to wail and lament, often beating their chests to heighten the perceived intensity of a loss. This performance, known as a gorigori, served to grant the deceased social notoriety; the more visible the grief, the greater the tragedy. This installation demonstrates that this figure has not vanished, but has simply transformed within the digital realm.