Gordita
Gordita is a video performance piece of 18.15 minutes which aims to make a revision of the self through an exercise of recovery of my childhood history marked by violent exclusions. I chose to cut the word Gordita (fat or chubby) in my stomach to problematize an experience that accounts for my vulnerability to this word. By problematizing it, the possibility of reparation and its own rewriting opens up. I appropriated the word to break the pattern I adopted since childhood where it was this word that dominated me. By externalizing the mark that caused so much pain in me, I realized the power words have to cause pain. There are words that hurt. That mark. That leave you scars stronger than your own skin. Words create certainties and define identities. The word ‘gordita’ interfered with me even before I realized that I was a [gordita]. And although with the passage of time my body changed, it left in me a mark so deep that it was part of my self-definition. By sharing this pain, the pain of carrying a word that more than imposed is self-inflicted, I got rid of the pain involved in hiding / exhibiting what the subject of the body and weight meant to me during most of my life. I recognized that my body did not belong to me. It belonged to a word.
Gordita is a video performance piece of 18.15 minutes which aims to make a revision of the self through an exercise of recovery of my childhood history marked by violent exclusions. I chose to cut the word Gordita (fat or chubby) in my stomach to problematize an experience that accounts for my vulnerability to this word. By problematizing it, the possibility of reparation and its own rewriting opens up. I appropriated the word to break the pattern I adopted since childhood where it was this word that dominated me. By externalizing the mark that caused so much pain in me, I realized the power words have to cause pain. There are words that hurt. That mark. That leave you scars stronger than your own skin. Words create certainties and define identities. The word ‘gordita’ interfered with me even before I realized that I was a [gordita]. And although with the passage of time my body changed, it left in me a mark so deep that it was part of my self-definition. By sharing this pain, the pain of carrying a word that more than imposed is self-inflicted, I got rid of the pain involved in hiding / exhibiting what the subject of the body and weight meant to me during most of my life. I recognized that my body did not belong to me. It belonged to a word.
Gordita is a video performance piece of 18.15 minutes which aims to make a revision of the self through an exercise of recovery of my childhood history marked by violent exclusions. I chose to cut the word Gordita (fat or chubby) in my stomach to problematize an experience that accounts for my vulnerability to this word. By problematizing it, the possibility of reparation and its own rewriting opens up. I appropriated the word to break the pattern I adopted since childhood where it was this word that dominated me. By externalizing the mark that caused so much pain in me, I realized the power words have to cause pain. There are words that hurt. That mark. That leave you scars stronger than your own skin. Words create certainties and define identities. The word ‘gordita’ interfered with me even before I realized that I was a [gordita]. And although with the passage of time my body changed, it left in me a mark so deep that it was part of my self-definition. By sharing this pain, the pain of carrying a word that more than imposed is self-inflicted, I got rid of the pain involved in hiding / exhibiting what the subject of the body and weight meant to me during most of my life. I recognized that my body did not belong to me. It belonged to a word.
GORDITA from Pamela Calero on Vimeo.