Displacement
Artist statement:
"Destierro (Displacement) creates a relationship between religious faith and the people's trust in the effectiveness of its rulers. The object the work refers to is a Nkisi Nkonde, a religious fetish mainly native to Congo. Those who practice this animistic religion ask the fetish to grant them their wishes. The Nkisi Nkonde is "loaded" or activated with relics or body parts of a deceased person. Each nail in it is a wish that has been complied with. According to this belief, these objects of power are highly effective, but the person who asks must make a promise in appreciation of the wish come true. If this promise is not fulfilled, the spirit in the Nkisi "wakes up" and looks for the person who did not comply to discharge all its power against him. These objects are so much respected and feared that at times they are used as witnesses in transactions or contracts between two people.
Destierro (Displacement) is an allegorical way to approach Cuban reality and the social promises that were made and never kept. Because of the intimate relationship of the Cuban people with African Cuban religions, this action can be understood by the general public. As a consequence, when in 1998 a performance was held in the streets in Havana on Fidel Castro's birthday, a popular peregrination walked behind the icon, which was followed, adored, feared, and on whom hopes, wishes and efforts have been invested to claim and restitute the social promises the Cuban Government had made to its people."
The icon itself has variable dimensions and "each time the piece is shown it may incorporate new symbolic materials (2005 bullets, 2003 pencils)".
