This two channel video installation continues an exploration of the city of El Alto, Bolivia that I began with Cada edificio en la Avenida Alfonso Ugarte — Según Ruscha (2011) which documents everyday movement in the city five years after Evo Morales was elected President on the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) ticket bringing an era of dramatic social change in Bolivia. Morales’ administration brought unprecedented economic growth, a new movement of individual pride and respect to all of Bolivia’s ethnic group and did away with the homogeneity project of the previous half century. Ironically, the Morales era has also brought about a decline in women’s rights, and a rise in LGTB hate crimes and femicide in Bolivia.
Parallels records an indigenous women’s wrestling show held in a Cholet*, a popular tourist event in the city of El Alto. Focusing on the audience and the building’s interiors over the show, it reflects on the superficial image of female empowerment that the Bolivian government has exported abroad - with a nod to Guy Debord’s Situationist film In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimurm Igni: un film (1978) of which Debord wrote: “the theme of the film is not the spectacle, but real life.”
Parallels (2022); Two channel 4k video installation; 5:00 minute excerpt from 25:25 minutes total; color; sound
*The fabric of El Alto has also visually changed in the Morales era as a burgeoning bourgeoisie favors a new Andean architectural style specific to the city of El Alto that brings traditional Andean and Tiwanaku cultures into an urban setting that has served to reinvent a city previously aesthetically monochromatic. *These structures have been called “Cholets,” a term derived from the words chalet [large house] and chola [sometimes a derogatory term for an indigenous woman]. Cholets are now ubiquitous throughout the city thanks to an economic boom that Morales’ government attributes to his macroeconomic policies.