HABITADA

HABITADA is a video art about the body as a metaphor, memory and territory of affection.https://youtu.be/evNeHii3gHI In HABITADA my body is the tissue where my memories are fixed, it's the land of my affections and the stories of my women ancestors, engraved in my body. Flesh is no longer just flesh, but the tapestry from which events are told and also read. It Is the materiality where the story is inscribed. The Body is no longer a closed entity. Life is (re) presented from fragments. The skin is no longer a limit, edge or frontier. It is autonomous and presents itself as a new territory for experimentation. In this experimental video art I talk about the memory of the body, in this case the memories of my ancestors. A body inhabited by women who have left a mark on me and somehow transformed the fragmented geography of my being. The arrival of the pandemic forced me to stop, to slow down my movements and with that, to have more time to be within myself. That pause meant coming into contact with my memories that, due to the hustle that emigrating from my native country to "live" all these years in the "survivor" mode has meant for me, I had not been able to connect. This time of introspection gave me the opportunity to connect with my roots and explore ways of expression and healing through art. For me, art heals and is healing. Who am I? Where do I come from? What do I do in this foreign country where I feel illiterate despite knowing the language and being able to communicate in it? Woman, immigrant, divided, traversed by so many stories. An ancestral seed that patiently waited to come out of the ground and open up. The guardian of the legacy of my ancestors, inhabited by their memories. This is a work of art to activate memory and pay tribute to the lineage of the women in my family but also a tribute to the Venezuelan Afro-descendant woman and especially to the Barloventeña woman. HABITADA is a video art made up of soundscapes, video, photographs and traditional songs from Barlovento, Venezuela, where the narrative is not linear. There is no beginning or end. It is not adjusted to a single language or stimulus. For this online exhibition I have chosen to present the video accompanied by four self-portraits. In each one, I hold a photograph. One of my maternal grandmother, Ángela; one of my paternal grandmother, América; one of my mother, Lourdes and in the last one, a photograph of me. Video credits : Creation, videography, photography, texts & editing by Adriana Rondón-Rivero Lejío singer: Guiber Mijares Palacios. Poem: Umbral by Hanni Ossott Los Ángeles, USA. Feb 23 de 2021.