"¿Pajarillo, Como No Voy A Llorar? (Little Birdy, How Could I Not Cry?)" is a video collage (of digital & super 8mm film) set to the Venezuelan folk song "Pajarillo Verde." It features Yara Travieso wrestling with a black fabric that engulfs her and a dying bird lodged in her chest. The chaotic movements of her body as a formless void contrast the rigid, violent forms—statues of Christopher Columbus, handguns, and physical borders—that are collaged over her. A rapidly shifting & elusive Caribbean landscape overlays the video. The project explores Travieso's deep grief over the disconnection from the formless wilderness of her motherland, and the forced colonial violence & control that is imposed in its absence.
This video is a part of my research for a new body of work under the name: “ANTOLOGIA”.
Film by: Yara Travieso
Music: Miriam Elhajli (singing a traditional Venezuelan folk song in the genre of “musica Llanera”)
Camera: Yara Travieso & Brighid Greene
Editor: Yara Travieso
Dramaturg: Catherine Correa