Apapacho, Silent Wear is a relational art project in three parts: workshop, performance, and exhibition. Co-created by Inés Somellera with Dutch artist Mella Jaarsma and social activist Felia Salim, and presented at the School of Arts of Jalisco. Named after the Nahuatl word apapacho, meaning an embrace or gesture of care and tenderness, the project creates a safe space of containment where emotional wounds can begin to heal through collective accompaniment.

Working with garments that hold personal memory and symbolize loss, the project draws on Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolés: wearable, participatory structures that transform participants into the artwork itself. Participants create wearable pieces through which they share stories of loss beginning from the lived reality of forced disappearances in Jalisco. Centered on listening, care, and shared vulnerability, the process culminates in a public courtyard performance and later an exhibition of the wearables.