Antigone, diary of rituals N.2
River Burial and Ridge of Silence
Lara, Venezuela 2012
Antigone, diary of rituals N.2: River Burial and Ridge of Silence 2012
Lara, VenezuelaHD video, audio, single-channel, split-screen 13:33Camera: Euro García, Livia Daza-ParisPerformative action: Livia Daza-ParisEditors: Xi Feng, Michael PoetschkoThis video presents two different rituals. River Burial took place in the cold, crystalline mountain waters near the town of Guaríco, and Ridge of Silence took place near the area where my father, Iván Daza, was politically disappeared.
I had printed the letters my mother had written to me in poster size—which I found by chance after her passing, and placed them by the rituals sites. In retrospect, I aimed to create a conversation between this place and what my mother, Irma Paris, had attempted to reveal in her letters about what had happened in the 1960s.
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Before these rituals, days earlier, I met with the sole survivor of the ambush, Rufino, who told me they were about the Ridge of Silence/Zanjón del Silencio the day my father was disappeared. I went there and found that it was at once beautiful and eerie. Its waters were stagnant and silent. An uncanny mirror to the story I am investigating.
Photos: Euro Garcia, Livia Daza-Paris