Regina José Galindo, Ojo de gusano: Don’t Look Down, performance, 2016, photo: Stathis Mamalakis
Cayeron en Guatemala
Cayeron en Honduras
Cayeron en Nicaragua
Cayeron en El Salvador
Cayeron en Panamá
Cayeron en Venezuela
Cayeron en Perú
Cayeron en Colombia
Cayeron en Uruguay
Cayeron en Paraguay
Cayeron en Bolivia
Cayeron en Chile
Cayeron en Argentina
Cayeron en Grecia
Cayeron en Turquía
El imperio llegó
y con ellos sus malas juntas
Y con ellos la muerte.*
—Regina José Galindo
The 1967–74 regime of the colonels in Greece was just one more in the long list of bloody dictatorships during the Cold War, supported by the United States against the forces of the communist danger, as they used to say. No matter how distant it seems we are from each other, we share a common past of repression, fight, and resistance. No matter how distant it seems we are from each other, we share a link.
Regina José Galindo was born in Guatemala City. As an artist and poet, she began making public performances in 1999. Galindo’s work received international acclaim in 2005 when she won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale in the category Artist Under 30 for ¿Quien Puede Borrar Las Huellas? (2003), making her the first woman from Central America to receive this accolade. Today, she is considered to be one of Guatemala’s most acclaimed contemporary performance artists. Galindo’s art is influenced by the violence of her native country’s past and current culture following the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–96). In her performative works, Galindo uses her body as a means to convey visual metaphors of the Guatemalan condition, and specifically injustices towards women within that society. On a universal level, her works can be seen as translations of issues of vulnerability, imbalances of authority, and loss of power.
*
They fell in Greece
They fell in Panama
They fell in Venezuela
They fell in Brazil
They fell in Argentina
They fell in Colombia
They fell in Ecuador
They fell in Chile
They fell in Peru
They fell in Bolivia
They fell in Uruguay
They fell in Paraguay
They fell in the Dominican Republic
They fell in Haiti
They fell in Honduras
They fell in Nicaragua
They fell in El Salvador
They fell in Guatemala
The Empire came
And with them, bad company
And with them, death.
Translated from the original Spanish by Helena Galindo
