Art has a responsibility to enunciate what lies beneath the status quo, in different forms, narratives, rituals/processes and media. For racialized women from former colonies, there is no other option than to think about these issues constantly as they affect our everyday lives, encountering the sense of either otherness or community as we share public spaces. Colonialism is a concrete system, just like racism and patriarchy. Without changes on a societal level, laws are useless, and so our work and our presence are imperative.
In the video: Images from performances and actions in different locations and with friends and family. Images from the interviews with my grandmothers and mother before migrating to Sweden. Images from my wedding celebration in Lima, which was organized by my family as per Andean tradition. Images from relatives' funerals and symbolic objects connected to mourning.
Translation of the text in the video:
‘My name is Rossana Mercado-Rojas, I was born in Lima in 1982. Amongst other jobs, I am an artist currently working in Stockholm. I create ephemeral interventions in spaces with sound performances, live painting, video, and spoken word. I do this to generate common spaces, and habitats-on-the-go and to reconfigure our right to inhabit this place, here and now.
My work departs from my personal/family journey through different social and legal structures, as a way to denounce what is often erased or ignored.
I re-search and re-create the past in order to understand or alleviate the present, in order to draft a possible future. It is an intense personal/collective journey through my/our colonial wound.
In this way, I archive and investigate family memories, communal traditions, photographs, stories, clothing, objects, remains, and words in order to build a contemporary self, perhaps anticolonial.
This process expanded after migrating to Europe from a former colony.
Both sides of my family come from the central Andes of Peru. I’ve always felt like an immigrant in Lima. A "Chola"[24].
And I raised up my son with the support of women, friends, my mother, grandmothers, aunts, Since then, my artistic work has documented and reconfigured this process: Pater Familias (2021) Here, I place documents related to the legal process to obtain full custody of my son, this project expanded with the documents issued to migrate to Sweden with my son. This project later became a platform for discussing stories of institutional violence against immigrant mothers in Europe. Since then, I have often worked collectively with Hysterix (Lima), La Dekoloniala!, and Creartivista Kollectiva in Stockholm.’
‘Cholos’ are people from the Andes (but also their descendants and those from the Amazons), generally when they come to the city and experience situations of discrimination. In Peru, cholo is a discriminatory term, even though it can be used as a self-determination word by people of Andean descent.
Music:
Renacer Perú “Hora loca (Costumbres Jaujinas)”
Arch enemy "Blood on your hands"
Beyonce ft. Jack White "Don't hurt yourself"
Images from family archive thanks to Sonia Rojas Poma.
Photos dancing in "El Angel" cementary during romería for El Picaflor de Los Andes (2018)
Music by: Miss Bolivia “Bien Warrior (feat. DJ Krass)”
In the indómita gif: Stephanie Valdivieso (BLUE MPC), Miriam Ku (Hatrapadah), Farrah, Elena Mejía (Ele), Josefina Jimenez and Cecilia Rejtman.
About the videos of dancing and mural painting in Visviri: Videos filmed during the project “Giro Panfronterizo” invited by Katia Sepúlveda. On the videos: Margarita Calfio, Alexandra Menacho, Angélica Chávez Cáceres, Daniela Nevera, Cecilia Rejtman, Nadia Callau and Katia Sepulveda.
Video “La Gozadera”: Princess Jimenez Beltre and Milagros Bedoya
Reference about Jessica Ordoñez and "Waist magic project" from "Afrochingonas podcast"( Marbella Figueroa, Valeria Angola, Scarlet Estrada) “4.5 Echando Dancing” July 2021 https://afrochingonas.com/project/4-5-echando-dancing/
Music: Sara Hebe “Asado de Fa”
The Latin Kings “Snubben trodde han va cool”
Annal Nathrakh “When Humanity is cancer”
Hysteriska Historiska (2018)exhibition co-curated with Magdalena Blom (Galleri Majkens) and Marie-Therese Luger in ABF huset. Videos by Magdalena Blom and Sara Leoni. Spoken word performance with Natalie Högström.
Image of Workshop with Ami Kohara as part of "A Longer Table" : Ami Kohara & Erik Sjödin. Köttinspektionen - Uppsala Kommun
Music by: Anitta “Gata (Feat. Chencho Corleone)”
Azul Azul “Bomba”
Videos filmed by Handrez García: In the images are Sonia Rojas Poma, Felicia Poma Yachachi, and Vilma Barreto (interviews before I moved to Sweden, 2018).
On the dance floors in different times spaces and Multiversas:
Angelica Chávez Cáceres, Sarai Alvarez, Valeria Montti Colque, Julio Marchena, Cecilia Rejtman, Natalie Högström, Margarita Calfio, Sara Sanjinez, Paloma Madrid, Amanda Ferrada, María José Iglesias Peralta, Safiye Bahadir, Celina Escher, Macarena Dussant, Mariana Silva Varela, Edwin Nordlund, Berta Guerra Aredal, Jessica Lara, María abaddon, Josefina Jiménez , etc.