But what do we, as viewers, bring into the space when we interact with the installation? This question was fundamental to the process of making the work, and is reflected, for example, in the collective use of the camera. Filming and directing were shared between the artist and the local community in a continuous exchange of power and perspectives. There’s a constant shift in who is looking through the lens and who’s being captured on film; who gets to remember and relate a story; who has the right to think about the future; and who holds the power to imagine and world-build. Tales of spirits, legends, haunted springs and ojos de agua, fragments of life, embodied emotions, and natural forces are all co-narrated in a way that, essentially, tells of a collective inhabiting of this world.
And if world-building is so soundly an act of imagining, it becomes clear that this act of imagining cannot be ours alone. It is shared by wak’a, a sacred body, a territory, concentrating natural energy and manifesting itself in the form of mountains, grass, thunder, or lakes and a pure, cosmic personhood. Orozco requested permission not only to film people in the community, but all other things perceived as living beings as well, such as the wind, the mountains, the rain, or the plants, accumulating rituals that can mediate those encounters. Having established relationships that are non-extractive and non-exploitative, Orozco is aware of the different nuances that the project commits to because of, or rather thanks to, its diverse protagonists.
But there are additional instances of feminist, decolonial practices in Orozco’s work. She manipulated the celluloid film with soil, an act that, far from violent, seeks to be one that restitutes matter to its source, imbuing the process with an earthly character, in a trusting collaboration, and with an unexpected result. This tactile approach is familiar to the Kalaque people. Unlike Western epistemology, which is strongly linked to seeing and visual input, in Kalaque, making sense primarily relates to using hands and bodies in order to know and interact: sewing, crafting, and working the land in non-invasive ways reflect a spiritual and gentle connection with the earth. Indeed, ecological sustainability and the ethics of waste inform another act of resistance in Orozco’s work, who is using 16mm film for the first time.
While digital video can be taken, re-taken, edited, and deleted, working with analogue film requires a different way of thinking. Each moment will be imprinted on the celluloid material, therefore almost forcing itself into the world, taking space, demanding to be seen. With its ever-present sense of a vital flow and interconnection with a multitude of others, the work rejects binary oppositions and, as a political vision, eschews a dialectics that pitches self-versus-other. It’s this sense of being connected to other beings that we are left with after experiencing Orozco’s work, an enhanced ability to understand and, hopefully, embody more ecologically sound relationships, and the capacity to shift approaches and switch perspectives, moving towards empathy and belonging.