Torita Encuetada
Elyla
Elyla
in collaboration with Milton Guillén
Torita-encuetada, 2023
Single-channel video installation, color, sound, 9 min 43 sec
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Still: Courtesy of the artist
- Date
- 2024
- Medium
- Single-channel video installation, color, sound
- Duration
- 10 min 8 sec
- Credit
TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
- This artwork is part of the donation and long-term loan from TBA21 to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Details
In Torita-encuetada, Chontal artist Elyla (Nicaragua) crafts a provocative and politically charged visual performance. The film opens with a chorus of voices, chanting: “We smell like bitches and sewers, don’t despair! We are the heritage of your guerrillas, don’t despair!” The scene captures the fleeting dream of a girl, awakened by a flickering candlelight revealing a colonizer's mask. In this surreal space, Elyla intertwines historical resistance with a queer choreography, where colonialism's hetero-patriarchal face is challenged by the indigenous, sexopolitical body. The film rejects visual satisfaction, instead embracing horror, repulsion, and joy—a powerful critique of colonial histories, embodied through the bold dance of subversion.
(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "Terraphilia", MNTB, Madrid, 2025)