Opening: Friday september 29th 5.30pm
BIENALSUR presents the historical figure of Afro-Argentine María Remedios del Valle in Dakar through the gaze and artistic work of Rodrigo Díaz Ahl.
Like other women of African descent who fought for Argentina during the transition from the colonial to the republican period, María Remedios del Valle became a symbol of resistance and national power. Today her recognition goes beyond her military conquests: not only do we speak of our black national identity through María Remedios del Valle, but also of our struggle for more rights and places to raise our voices and take action. Recovering her memory also contributes to highlighting the enormous influence of Africans and Afro descendants in philosophy, literature, music, and language, among other ancestral knowledge that has remained hidden in our land.
Argentine artist Rodrigo Díaz Ahl was invited to pay homage to this emblematic figure by bringing to life part of this Afro-Argentine heritage and reflecting what the African Renaissance Monument represents as a way of strengthening the bonds of our common history. The artist's sculptural work focuses on the remains and the scarce traces of the dreams of our species. The artist compulsively produces faces and bodies and at the same time collects objects, debris, roots, elements that somehow reveal a state of utter abandonment. His works bluntly reveal what we were and what we will inevitably become: dust and debris, fruitless aridity, pure past. These objects, steeped in history, yearn to engage in a silent dialogue about a part of our universal history.
