La Maravilla
two-channel video projection, 35:00 minutes
Hair + Nails, Minneapolis, 2021; Dreamsong, Minneapolis, 2023
This video was done in collaboration with Joe González, art student at the University of Concepción and with assistance from Chilean artists Leslie Fernández Barrera and Oscar Concha.
During consecutive artist residencies at CASAPOLI, Coliumo, Chile, 2012 and 2013, I was tasked with feeding a pack of five stray dogs who became my companions during my stay. The resiliency and gritty perseverance of these strays became emblematic of that of many Chileans, whose lives have been impacted by an economic model that has engendered material, political and social inequalities. “Negro Matapacos” (cop killer), a stray dog celebrated for his solidarity and defense of protesters, became a pre-pandemic icon of the 2020 “Estallido Social” in Chile. Juxtaposing footage of dogs and humans interacting and cross-mingling in the human-built environment the video essay “La Maravilla” explores what scholar and activist Lori Gruen refers to as an “entangled empathy” that begins to erode animal hierarchy and imagines new models for “making kin” (Haraway) in the Anthropocene.