The video Antojo (Desire) is a series of public recitations of a poem my mother taught me to perform when I lived in Guayaquil at age 10. Afro-Ecuadorean poet Adalberto Ortiz used vernacular language from the oral art tradition of Esmeraldas, an area in Ecuador originally settled by escaped African slaves, to tell a cautionary tale about the dangers of miscegenation. “If you get with a white man, / Your children are almost Black, / Your children are almost white. / Your children are nothing.” By re-enacting my childhood performances in front of panoramas of contemporary Guayaquil—its redeveloped waterfront, its slums, the decaying remnants of its grand architecture and the kitschy celebration of its colonial past at Parque Historico (the Historical Park)—I examine the racial stereotypes of the poem while embracing its authenticity as a part of Afro-Ecuadorean identity.
Projects > Memories of Development > Antojo/Desire
All images © Karina Aguilera Skvirsky 2012 |
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