dawn chorus ii: el niagara en bicicleta

2018 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

1:45:00 minutes

Sofía Córdova

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dawn chorus ii: el niagara en bicicleta is a work produced in Sofía Córdova native Puerto Rico and was largely shaped by the financial crisis, the islands’ histories under colonial rule and most recently, the climate-change related natural disasters which have affected the island. The latest of which, hurricane Maria, and the subsequent political mishandling of the situation, gave the project its ending. Prior to the hurricane, this work also engaged in conversation with blackness and anti-blackness in the Caribbean, syncretic religion and dance music as modes of survival and liberation, and fantasy and science-fictional strategies as means to break out of our current arc of history. This work in addition to documentary tactics, includes fantastical elements, choreographed dance and costuming. Originally conceived as a prequel to the sci-fi series Echoes of a Tumbling Thrones (Odas al fin de los tiempos) and part of the dawn_chorus trilogy , these media works provide alternate timelines to the violent and catastrophic ones of ‘history’. The artist describes the production process: “upon my latest return home to see my parents and family post hurricane, I completed filming and created a series of recordings of my family members’ accounts of life before, during and after the hurricane. These stories range from dangerous drives through downed power lines hours after the storm was over, to moments of prayer outside a Wal-Mart, and gruesome accounts of the cemetery next to an aunt’s house after the seawater flooded the tombs.” The interviews are interspersed with recordings of songs referencing hurricanes culled from the artist’s late abuelo Cuco’s extensive salsa record collection. Text courtesy of the artist.

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Sofía Córdova’s films make many noises. Whether subtle, soothing, or disturbing, her practice contains questions about feminism, the Earth, power, liberation, migration, extinction, and extractive capitalism. Through time-warped fabulations, the artist speeds time up or slows it down, transmitting visions from the future to make sense of how power operates in the present. In other words, she explores the possibility of many futures through a plurality of audio-visual experiences condensed into a single digital experience. Córdova’s speculations combine crunchy electronic soundtracks with images of green forest beings or an ethereal, organic score that contextualises horrific personal narratives. This aesthetic experience troubles the notion that normalcy is guaranteed in the future—or at least what we humans on Earth know as normalcy—asserting that comfort on our planet is not guaranteed despite our best (and worst) efforts to alter our surroundings.

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Colors:

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• imperialism.n.01
• colonialism.n.01
• calamity.n.01
• nature.n.01
• dystopia.n.01
• tradition.n.01