Abstract
Searching for Bruno is a performance by Lukas Avendaño that transforms personal grief into collective resistance. Created in response to the forced disappearance of his brother Bruno Alonso Avendaño Martínez in Oaxaca in 2018, the piece stages mourning as political action. Presented at the Mexican consulate in Barcelona, the performance begins with a formal letter hand-delivered to the consul, demanding governmental accountability. Lukas appears in a black shawl and skirt, holding Bruno’s photograph as an act of embodied protest that captures media attention and reframes gendered presence as resistance.
Outside the consulate, two chairs are placed: one for Lukas, the other representing Bruno’s absence. That absence is ritualistically occupied by others: companions and strangers who sit beside Lukas, dressed in his likeness, and join hands. In doing so, they recreate Las dos Fridas (The Two Fridas), invoking solidarity across identities, distances, and losses.
Searching for Bruno reclaims public space through vulnerability and shared embodiment, denouncing the state’s complicity in disappearance and affirming the power of collective mourning. When Bruno’s remains were found in 2020, Lukas publicly thanked the community: “You have brought him back.” In this performance, the body becomes not only a site of grief, but a conduit for justice and remembrance.
On May 10, 2018, Bruno Alonso Avendaño Martínez, brother of Lukas, disappeared. He was 35 years old, and his family began searching for him immediately, filing a missing person report the following day. Due to the ineffectiveness of the authorities, the search continued through the efforts of his relatives. Lukas Avendaño, in turn, created a performance piece titled Searching for Bruno. It was presented at the Mexican consulate in Barcelona on June 21, 2018.
In the first part of the performance, Lukas Avendaño handed a formal letter to the Mexican consul in Barcelona, explaining his brother’s disappearance and requesting that the Mexican government find him. During the encounter, he wore a skirt and a black shawl, and carried a photo of his brother. In this way, he drew international media attention.
In the second part of the performance, outside the consulate, two chairs were placed. Avendaño sat in one, while the other remained empty, representing someone’s absence. That absence was then symbolically filled by others, both companions or spectators, who dressed like him in a skirt, petticoat, headband, and ruffle provided by the artist, and in a gesture of solidarity, held hands with him, recreating The Two Fridas by Frida Kahlo.
On December 3, 2020, it was announced that Bruno Avendaño had been found dead in a clandestine grave on November 12 by authorities in Oaxaca, on the border between the municipalities of Salina Cruz and Tehuantepec. On his Facebook page, Lukas Avendaño wrote:
“And in this sequence of acts of justice, at this moment the least I can do on behalf of our family, of myself, and above all on behalf of Bruno is to thank you deeply for bringing him back home. It was all of you who brought Bruno back to us with your thoughts, your prayer chains, your searches, your demands, and calls for justice.”
Citation
Avendaño, Lukas. 'Buscando a Bruno [Searching for Bruno]'. Dispossessions in the Americas. https://staging.dia.upenn.edu/en/art/AMEX008/

