'The mask is looking at us': Afrodescendant representation in Bolivian carnival

Sharon Pérez focuses on creating visibility for the Afrodescendant communities in Bolivia through her artistic practice. By painting portraits, on rusting metals or daily-use furniture such as chairs, window frames or doors, large-scale installations and peformance she seeks to break the circulation of stereotypes of Afrodescendant bodies.

‘These last months prior to the residency in London have been an intense period of research, experimentation and reflection. It has been a time of transformation.  From the Morenada masks and their relationship with Afro-Bolivian identity, I have been able to approach other spaces, taking the step to work now more with the visual than with the plastic. These are the spaces in which this project is developed, from the transformation and transmutation of the objects and identities contained in an institutional space such as the British Museum’

Sharon Pérez’s project focuses on the representation of bodies and faces. The artist will produce a series of works in response to the Morenada masks from Bolivia in the British Museum’s collection. Specifically, there is a series of masks that represent various characters from the Morenada collected between the 1980s and 2000s by Felicity Nock and Henry Stobart. These masks perpetuate stereotypical features of Afro-descendant people and are commonly danced by members from the Aymara community.

This project is a reflection on the lack of Afro-descendant representation in the collection and an opportunity to emphasize the multiplicity of voices on a shared cultural heritage.

This project began as a reflection by SDCELAR on the exclusion of a multiplicity of perspectives on the carnivals of Peru and Bolivia, specifically Afro perspectives on the dances that represent Black people such as the dances of the Morenadas. These dances are presented at the Oruro carnival and at the Fiesta del Gran Poder in La Paz.

In conversation with the project of the Aymara artist Nereida Apaza Mamani from Peru, the two artists were interviewed for an article that argues that dances and carnivals are counter-monuments given their ephemeral nature and their traditional role as methods of resistance.

“There is a very long tradition of colonialism in the danzas. There is resistance to colonialism within them, for example the representation of resistance to the Spanish yoke. You could trace the colonial history of Bolivia through these dances. Each specific danza has its own topic of resistance and they continue to change over time. These frequent changes have been intensely criticized, but in essence, these danzas are used to unveil the systems of oppression.” – Sharon Pérez (ReVista Spring/Summer 2021, Volume XX, Number 3)

STAY UPDATED >> For more about this and other projects follow us on Facebook and Instagram.