I - The Artist

Colonization by Cattle. Intaglio. 130cmx650cm. 2016.

I am an artist based in Winnipeg, Canada, but I was born and raised in Paraguay. My art is closely linked to who I am and where I'm from. In part of my art practice I try to process complicated social, economic, and political issues in the Paraguayan Chaco, where I spent the first 19 years of my life. I acknowledge that I lived on Enlhet (North) territory and I attempt to represent my thoughts and ideas from a place of empathy and humility, the knowledge that I and my people have wronged the Enlhet, and an awareness that I don't know enough about the culture, the history and the experiences of the peoples we dispossessed.

I grew up in a Mennonite settler community in the Menno Colony. My maternal great-grandparents migrated to the Paraguayan Chaco in 1927 from Manitoba, Canada. Growing up, the general Mennonite history narrative was always (and continues to be) something like this: "there was nothing here but wilderness. We made something of this land. The Indians welcomed us and helped us with the farming. God sent us here to evangelize the Indians. They came to us because they were starving and we helped them. We coexist peacefully to this day." I never thought much about the point of view of narrative until I moved to Canada. I audited a Canadian history class at the University of Manitoba out of interest and our textbook presented three different points of view on history: the dominant and widely accepted eurocentric history, and the history from the point of view of indigenous people and women. Of course the narratives of certain events looked quite different depending on the perspective of the narrator. This course was such an eye opener and I have sought out first person narratives by indigenous people in the Chaco and more objective writing about indigenous people since. Those narratives paint a very different picture of my history and it humbles me I didn't know more about it sooner. (It ought to be taught in schools!).

I have always keenly felt the tensions of injustice that surrounded me growing up, the wealth of the Mennonites and the abject poverty of the indigenous population, as well as the complete separation of the white and indigenous communities. I also had a general awareness of a constant underlying racism, but I never quite knew how to deal with it or how to address it, since interactions with indigenous people were limited for a white teenage girl. I am grateful that Dad taught me to think critically. We had somewhat of an outsider's perspective on life in the Chaco. He was a teacher from Germany at the local high school and he was catholic, which always "othered" us in the Mennonite community. He was incredibly smart, curious, sensitive, open, friendly and generous and he treated indigenous people differently form anyone I knew, which I'm sure has shaped me. I think much of what I witnessed I only began to understand after I left home. I'm not an activist or otherwise an influential person; I don't believe I have much power to change the world from my studio, but I'm changing my own way of thinking through reading, learning, exploring, processing, and creating, and I'm sharing my experiences, my story, my observations as part of a greater conversation about social justice, racism, and colonialism. I believe support, empathy, a desire for change, political interest and engagement must come from all sectors of society, from indigenous peoples, academics, artists, students, etc., to form an alliance. (1)

I'm extremely excited to have been invited to be part of this artist residency with the British Museum, but I also constantly question whether I'm the right person to do this and how I can do this project justice. I come from white privilege and my world view is shaped by eurocentrism, but I also come from a standpoint of wanting to learn, wanting to understand, wanting to get to know more about indigenous culture, indigenous thinking, indigenous narrative, the indigenous point of view of history, and this artist residency offers me just that opportunity: to read, to broaden my horizon, to reflect, to question in what ways we might be complicit in the narratives we perpetuate, and perhaps contribute in a small way to a conversation about possible change. 

(1) Schmidt, Elmar. "Ambiente, ecología y sustentabilidad: imaginarios latinoamericanos en la literature, el arte y el cine." Omland, Clara (Ed.): La sostenibilidad en Latinoamérica. Hacia un buen vivir desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria, Lima: Ed. San Marcos 2013, pp. 113-146.