The Guatemalan artist Regina José Galindo presented this Tuesday in New York her video installation ‘Tierra’ (2013), a silent cry against the indigenous genocide during the civil war in her country (1960-1996) which, she assures, finds echo in conflicts current as the Palestinian.
Galindo (Guatemala City, 1974) stands on a plot of grass, naked and defiant, while an excavator opens a pit around him in the 33 minutes that the piece lasts, which can be seen on a large scale starting Thursday at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), at its PS1 headquarters, in Queens.
The reference of performance art in Latin America tells EFE that she attended the genocide trial against the dictator Efraín Ríos Montt in 2012 as a listener, where the massacre of thousands of indigenous people, most of them Mayan Ixil, was detailed; an experience that inspired her to “scream about the truth of Guatemala.”
“It was shocking, very hard: it is very different to read the victims’ testimonies than to hear them firsthand,” recalls the poet about that trial against Ríos Montt, who was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity that occurred during his brief but brutal government. , between 1982 and 1983.
Galindo explains that another of the testimonies he heard was that of a protected soldier, who told how the army opened mass graves with excavators “and threw away the bodies of the indigenous people, sometimes alive.”
“What is currently happening in Israel and Palestine”
Eleven years have passed since he made “Tierra”, acquired by MoMA in 2020, but he maintains that it is a project with many “layers of information” and readings about the defense of the territory, so it does not lose validity, and makes a positioning politician without hesitation.
“It can be a very current piece that talks about war and land conflicts, what is currently happening in Israel and Palestine: this genocide that is happening to keep the Palestinian lands,” he adds, and then states: “The “Earth is the origin of humanity’s conflicts.”
The curator of the exhibition, Elena Ketelsen González, highlights that by bringing the work to Queens, which has a large Latin and Central American population, she hopes to open a debate about the events in Guatemala and the current discourse of the migratory crisis, related precisely to the fight over territories.
Galindo, who grew up “with coups d’état and military governments,” believes that “there is no one in Guatemala who has not been affected by what happened,” and invited to reflect, she does not doubt that it is possible to heal, “but For that we need an end to plunder and colonialism,” he adds.
And he makes a call, remembering that the trial is being held against Manual Benedicto Lucas García, former chief of the General Staff of the Guatemalan Army (1982-1983), for the massacre of 1,771 indigenous people during the internal armed conflict.
“In Guatemala we have another opportunity to do Justice,” he adds.
We invite you to visit us on the new NY1 Noticias channel on WhatsApp. There you will find the most relevant news about what is happening in New York, as well as other coverage about the rest of the country, Latin America and the world. click in this link to access the channel. We thank you in advance if you become one of our followers and express your reaction to what we publish with an emoji.
