C&AL: In several countries across Latin America, anti-racist and anti-colonial movements and collectives are opening a discussion about the region’s colonial past. How do you think the artistic actions of the Ayllu Collective can help rehabilitate those dynamics?
AC: We titled one of the POPS’ public sessions at the Triennial “Perhaps Rewriting History is Our Only Form of Reparation.” This is a quote by Saidiya Hartman from her text “Venus in Two Acts.” We are inspired by the idea of imagining and recreating a different past; one “that has not yet been written” as well as many (im)possible futures. In this sense, our creations can trace other escape routes from the hegemonic, white, heterosexual and cisgendered narratives by which we have become intoxicated
Rewriting history does not just mean “rewriting” in a literal sense. It also means opening collective spaces of circulation of voices and embodied narratives, of the memories of our grandmothers, of food, of smells, of memories that we did not even remember we had because the white project has always demanded their erasure.
C&AL: What are your plans for the future?
AC: We plan to continue producing POPS in a self-managed way or with the support of cultural institutions. This year, we have been invited to participate in the group exhibition Raíz at the Contemporary Art Center in Quito, Ecuador with an installation we presented in March 2020 at the Sydney Biennale titled: Don’t Blame Us For What Happened.
We will be part of the rearrangement of the collection at Reina Sofia in Madrid, and we are invited to the Kochi Biennale in India, although it is currently paralyzed by the pandemic. In 2023 we plan to participate in the project Antifurista cimarrón, curated by Yuderkys Espinosa.
Ana Luisa González, who conducted the interview, studied literature and works as a cultural journalist and freelance reporter in Colombia.
Translation from Spanish by Zarifa Mohamad Petersen