Geografías habitadas: Abuela Ángela

Geografías habitadas (Inhabited Geographies) by Adriana Rondón-Rivero Geografías habitadas is a series of photographs that are part of the video installation, Habitada (Inhabited). 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, it is 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 and 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 art work 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, ones that due to the hustle that it has meant for me to emigrate from my native country and "live" all these years in the "survivor" mode 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-speaking 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 A tribute to the Venezuelan Afro-descendant woman and especially to the Barloventeña woman. For this online exhibition I have chosen to present a video accompanied by four self-portraits in which 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. Photo credits Photos by Adriana Rondón-Rivero Los Ángeles, USA. Sep 2021.