On Nov. 18, together with LASTESIS, Maryam Kamal Hedayat and Lucila Guichon, I launched a call in which we invited women and queer people to write a short free paragraph (in the language of their choice) about the criminal alliance between gender-based violence and border politics.
They then had the choice to sign it or not.
As part of the Proximamente program, the LASTESIS collective is part of a joint residency program with the MESTIZO ARTS PLATFORM and Royal Flemish Theatre. In the process, LASTESIS also worked with the other artists based in the EU, including Maryam, Lucila and myself to expose the theme of “subalternity” (colonial oppression, as described by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Karina Bidaseca, among others) in dialogue with the diaspora.
Colectivo LASTESIS is an artistic, interdisciplinary and feminist collective from Valparaíso, Chile, composed of Daffne Valdés Vargas, Paula Cometa Stange, Lea Cáceres Díaz and Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem. The collective is committed to spreading feminist theory more widely through performance; specifically, through an interdisciplinary language that combines the performing arts, sound art, graphic design, textile design, history and social sciences. They are also the creators of the performance Un violador en tu camino, which has been performed in more than 50 countries.
As a Latina hailing from the Dominican Republic, I have the honor of “coincidentally” collaborating on this project. Or yet not entirely by chance? To commemorate the brutal 1960 murder of three Dominican Republic political activists known as Las Hermanas Mirabal (Antonia Maria Teresa, Maria Argentina Minerva and Patricia Mercedes were killed at the behest of US-backed dictator Rafael Trujillo), the United Nations has declared Nov. 25 the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Today, Nov. 25, the letters that came in in response to Monday’s call will be read aloud and videotaped at the Beursschouwburg in Brussels. The recordings will be used to launch LASTESIS collective’s project during PROXIMAMENTE FESTIVAL, which takes place tomorrow at the Royal Flemish Theatre.
Jennifer Baez Matos, for Kif Kif
