Art and the Body – Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera is a performance and installation artist from Cuba. She uses the body in her installations and videos to explore issues of power and control. One of her most famous works includes El Peso de la Culpa (the Burden of Guilt). This was a performance work in which Bruguera is standing before the Cuban flag which she had woven using human hair, with a butchered lamb hung around her neck. For a period of approximately 45 minutes, she mixed Cuban soil with water and ate it. She later explained that the performance alludes to a suicide-ritual practiced by the natives of Cuba. “By eating large quantities of earth, many took their own lives when faced with the threat of the Spanish conquistadores.” Displacement is a performance work in which Burguera incorporates a body which alludes to Nkisi Nkonde, who is an African figure, also used in Cuban spiritual practices. This figure was covered in mud and had rusted nails sprouting out of its limbs. Nkisi is a figure to which promises are made in exchange for granting petitions. Each nail is proof of these promises, and when a promise isn’t kept, the figure ‘awakens’ and goes in search of the person who broke this promise. In the performance the figure (a performer) is still for many hours, then stirs and eventually goes out into the streets in search of those who’ve broken their promises.