EMANCIPATED
I can control the world like you, man
Do it from my silence and my burst
I will not be your mother, I will not be your wife
I will be the monster you did not see in the war
I can do it like a woman
But, what is a woman?
What is it to be a woman?
And what is it to be a man?
In the voice of Daniela Vega, a Chilean transgender singer and actress, the words of the emancipated spread the claim against the dominant heteronormative society. This is one of the voices of the Emancipating Opera written by Voluspa Jarpa and sociologist Alberto Mayol to give a unique format to the historical disputes –which are still part of our present– between hegemonic and subordinated positions. The texts, conceived in tension, are pierced by the marks of social conflicts, gender, ethnicity, and the decolonial re-reading.
This Opera is one of the pieces that make up the video installation that Voluspa and curator Agustín Pérez Rubio present simultaneously at the Chilean Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. The decision to focus on this work and install it in the dungeon of the Cabildo aims to re-signify it in this venue and to revisit it in the cultural horizon of South America.
The past thus resonates in a present in which the idea of emancipation is not only part of the historical discourse, but also continues to be significant.
Thus, the presence of this installation in the Cabildo represents a catalyst of meanings concerning certain relevant events of the Latin American independence feat and brings about new readings and interpretation fields concerning a history that we, Latin Americans, believe to know.
The voices engage in a dialogue that slips through the dungeon bars, floods this historical building, surprises and unsettles visitors, and invites them to search for the origin. In the hall, along with clamps, chains and shackles, some neat lecterns hold the texts uttered
Dianal Wechsler
*On the basis of the curatorial hypothesis of Emancipating Opera by Voluspa Jarpa, the exhibition was held at the MNAV of Montevideo, thus creating a simultaneous liaison between these spaces within the cartography of BIENALSUR 2019.
