I met Elvi posing as a model for her photographic project “The Way of Collage”, in Darmstadt. 130 people. She needed to know more people than she already knew in a city where the conversation was simply in the spirit of the Datterich*. The first time I saw her acting was at a party for rich people where she was hired to read. She handed out poems to some guests and these should translate them to the strangest languages. Then everyone should read in their language, also the language they had created. Only two of those texts could be understood. Then we got married and everyone was dressed as a Bavarian. One day I saw her shaking a tree full of snow on her nude and painted body. I did not dare to share this performance with her. The performance lasted 45 minutes. She told me she was very hot. Another day she wore a garland of flowers around the city. She had been operated from two cervical herniated discs and did not want to be seen with that collar for “sick people”. She asked me to bring her to the hospital many white flowers. I never ask why. She began to sew the collar and the whole team of nurses and doctors at the hospital gathered to be photographed with her. She walked the city with the collar and everybody smiled at her. She invited me to walk through the city in winter with a blanket thrown over the two of us to keep warm. We posed and people took pictures of us. She tells me stories of Carpentier, Bukowski, about the performances of Marina Abramovic, the videos of Matthew Barney, the plays and poems by Fernando Arrabal and Enzensberger. She sings me the songs of Kevin Coyne while dancing salsa. Despite living more than seven years in Germany, she dreams every night about Havana, and every day with a new project, and when she tells me she‘s going to make another one, I tremble, for I know she will, and me with her, because Elvi is tenacious, brilliant, with every idea that she thinks, lives and we share. But “Singles on Tour - Bachelor Party”, or “Parchment Brides”, is grandiose. (Javier Buergo, München, Feb. 2011, München)   info@javierbuergo.de