Yoshua Okón
Octopus, 2011
Two synchronized projections and Home Depot buckets with foam
Digital videos with sound
17:12 minutes, loop
Dimensions Variable
Courtesy of the Artist
Octopus is titled after a local nickname given to the Guatemalan-based American monopolyUnited Fruit Company, now known popularly as Chiquita Banana. The CIA, working to protect the United States’ investments in the United Fruit Company—then Guatemala’s largest land-owner—deposed the country’s democratically elected president in a coup that led to the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996). Okón’s work documents the performances of Indigenous Mayan day laborers who were displaced by this war as they reenact gestures of military formations and covert operations drawn from their experiences of warfare. Set in the parking lot of a Los Angeles Home Depot, the video critiques the alliances between politics, capitalism, and the devastating fall-out of American imperialism abroad.
360 Installation View
Photo Credit Mirna Chacín