Human Zoos
THIRST for REVENGE
IMPORTANT:
Under no circumstances do we claim to belong to any aboriginal community. We are mestizos, and by being immigrants in Europe we recognize the privilege of being here, talking about this, while the surviving victims of the ravages caused by the multiple businesses of Colonialism and Capitalism are still resisting if they haven't desisted, fighting and dying if they can't be forcedly submitted to this imposed system. We are a channel, we are communication, we are miscegenation, we are bastards, we are rage, we are DECOLONIZATION.
The performance HUMAN ZOOS presents the untold history of European Ethnological Exhibitions (19th - 20th Century). Thousands of native people from America, Africa and Asia were kidnapped to be displayed at these popular events. They were victims of exploitation, abuse, rape and even experimentation for medical research.
Through installation, audiovisual material and imaginatively playing the roles of “savages” in eternal captivity making imposed “shows”, we reveal deplorable historical facts performing a psychomagic ritual of revenge and liberation on their behalf.
We know that by studying, exposing and representing this hidden history we make ourselves somehow accomplices of this aberrant facts which provoke a mix of fascination and horror, but it’s a burden we accept to carry as the cost of the truth.
The only real death is oblivion, and we are not willing to forget them; that's why we make this performance “despite everything”, because no matter how brutal and inhumane this show can be, it will never reach the cruelty of reality.
What is forgotten can be repeated, and this should never happen again.
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
This is a work of investigation and interpretation, with no lucrative intentions, totally self-managed and in constant evolution and modification; therefore every representation has been different to the former ones, and each time it exists the necessity of investigating and digging more and more.
Human Zoos was already presented in “Festival Annulé” Toulouse, France; “La Feria de los Monstruos” Madrid, Spain; “Queer Mutante Panik Party” Brussels, Belgium; and in “Queer Take Over, KÖPI’s Birthday Gala” Berlin, Germany.
In current presentations we are making emphasis in the genocide of the Selk'nam people from Patagonia, South America, which led to the extinction of their race and their traditions, as well as in the current Chilean situation, where lands are being exploited and nature destroyed by the same heirs of this ethnic cleansing's authors, while the few remaining natives are still fighting for their lands and the survival of their cultures, like most of the aboriginal communities worldwide which have not been yet annihilated.
Now the performance has evolved into a gruesome hybrid between “Human Zoos”, “Forced Syncretism” and “Fuck the Fascism” - three art projects connected by history, abuse and Maria Basura - which was premiered in October at the Berlin PornFilmFestival as:
“Thirst for Revenge: The Pornographic Side of Colonialism's Hidden History ”
…
For more information, videos, fotos, reference links and news, please be welcome to explore this blog we are building for you.