Latin America - IILA
Pavilion of the Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano (IILA), Arsenale - Isolotto. Commissioner: Sylvia Irrazábal; curator: Alfons Hug.
For an optimal view of our website, please rotate your tablet horizontally.
Ghost Chaco. 2009
Video, colour, sound
Fredi Casco has ventured into the lonely and phantasmagorical paths of the Paraguayan Chaco, documenting the celebration of Arete Guasu among the Chiriguano community of Santa Teresita. … In order to protect their celebrations from colonial Christian intolerance, the Guaraní community incorporated medieval European elements (cone-shaped hats and masks) to camouflage their indigenous festival with the trappings of the colonists’ Carnival. The criss-crossing mesh of influences is ongoing and the festival continues to invoke ancestral deities with updated costumes that include ornaments such as compact disks or Spiderman and Halloween masks derived from the dominant capitalist culture. The purity of this Carnival is not an indispensable requirement for the indigenous heritage to survive and continue in all of its splendour.
© Still: Fredi Casco
Repro: Haupt & Binder
Pavilion of the Istituto Italo-Latinoamericano (IILA), Arsenale - Isolotto. Commissioner: Sylvia Irrazábal; curator: Alfons Hug.