Guardian 2
2018 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
37 x 146 x 130 cm
Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa
In Guardian 2 Naufus Ramírez Figueroa explores the historical memory and political reality of the ruins of Kawinal, an archeological site of postclassic Mayan culture that was flooded in order to construct the hydroelectric dam of Chixoy in 1975 in a supposed effort to bring electricity to the country. However, the reality was that the communities living in the area faced the swamping of their lands and properties, and endured the loss of their sacred sites. Those who refused to relocate became the victims—many of which were women and children—of what came to be known as the 1982 massacre of Río Negro at the hands of the military, the spectral traces of which still pervade behind the natural and cultural landscape of the region. Ramírez Figueroa revisits the political history of this event and other communities, to elaborate a narrative that offers a critical perspective on the grim consequences of an armed conflict, which emerges from the social landscape and cultural horizon of the region.
In Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa’s practice, performance and narrative are interwoven through the use of sculptural objects that link pre-Columbian civilizations, seditious brotherhoods, evangelism, and imperialism. In an unsettling dream-like fashion, many of the artist’s works operate as non-narrative fictions that depart from his personal experience of Guatemalan history—particularly the country’s civil war that ran from 1960 to 1996 and in which members of his family took an active part—but always distancing himself from a documentary take on history. Thus, the artist creates fable-like situations, which mix memories and visions from his childhood with a dose of pathos and humor, to address cultural and political events such as the war’s genocide of Mayan populations, the infiltration of Mormon missionaries in the country, and the contemporary followers of apocalyptic conspiracies.
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