Alka domo

2017 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

17:00 minutes

Seba Calfuqueo

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Alka domo by Seba Calfuqueo is a performative video work that recontextualizes a story about Caupolicán, the Mapuche toki (meaning symbol of strength and perseverance in the face of adversity). Caupolicán was elected military leader by the Mapuche people of Chile after successfully completing the challenge of holding a log on his shoulders for two days. Caupolicán led the Mapuche army in the first uprising against the Spanish conquistadors from 1553 to 1558. In Alka domo the artist holds a tree trunk that he hollowed out by hand above his head in various public sites. The particular type of tree used in this endurance performance is called coihuea; it is a significant type of ancestral wood from Southern Chile. Hueco (‘hollow’ in English) is the derogatory term that Chilean people use to refer to queer people— identities that are problematic to the patriarchal systems in Chile. Refiguring references of Caupolicán’s masculinity, the artist wore seven different colored pairs of high heels throughout the action, each pair representing a color of the LGBTQ flag. Meditating on historical, cultural, and biographical legacies, the locations for the performance represent places where the complexity of interaction between Mapuche and Chilean culture and territory is evinced, alongside areas associated with the artist’s own biography.

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Seba Calfuqueo is an artist of Mapuche origin whose work critically reflects on the social, cultural, and political status of the Mapuche people in contemporary Chilean society. Calfuqueo’s expansive practice mobilizes installations, ceramics, performance, and video to explore their heritage, feminism, and sexual dissidence. Their work often parses out the cultural similarities and differences, as well as stereotypes, that emerge from the intersection of Indigenous and Westernized modes of thought. Calfuqueo is also part of the Mapuche collective Rangiñtulewfü and contributes to the magazine Yene.

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Colors:

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• autochthonal.s.01
• endurance.n.01
• body.n.01
• masculinity.n.02
• sex.n.04
• patriarchy.n.01