benjamin lundberg torres sánchez

i dug 54 stones from the providence river
Performance. (2015)

I carry bundles of river stones through the gallery on my knees. The bundles are then unwrapped, and laid out across the gallery floor. As the bundles are unbound, the twine holding the stones together is wrapped around my hands until each is fully bound. The stones are ordered from smallest to largest. I then take the largest stone, and, while squatting, hold it at chin level for the audience to see while repeating details about the stones’ removal:

     I dug 54 stones out of the Providence River bed this morning between the      hours of 7 AM and 8 PM this morning, Friday, April 17th 2015, transported them      across state lines to this gallery in Boston. They are river stones. I have taken      them from the river. I have taken these stones out of context.

After many repetitions, I then begin to interject details about the U.S. military’s abuses of 54 girls in Melgar, Colombia in 2004. For the remainder of the performance I switch back and forth between reporting the details of the stones, and of the girls from Melgar. Due to the physical strain of lifting the stone, the two narratives become obscured, interrupted, and intermixed.

I initiated this piece with the intent to hold space for the 54 girls who were sexually abused and raped by U.S. military personnel at Tolemaida Air Base just outside of the girls’ hometown in Melgar. Through creating the piece, I immediately faced the problem of representing another’s trauma — through objects, through performance — in a context divorced from the survivor’s voice and presence. I was also forced to reckon with my own role in the work as a U.S. citizen.

Choosing to represent the 54 girls with stones dug out of the Providence River led me to think about the crimes of displacement, trafficking, narratives of trauma removed from their context, and my own failures in representation. In the work, I contemplate my participation in violence: my direct violence done to both the river and the stones through the removal process, and my remote participation as a U.S. citizen in violence perpetrated by the U.S. in my birth-country Colombia. As a U.S. citizen, I am a beneficiary of foreign intervention and U.S. state terrorism.

Performance History:

Re Performed 5 November 2016
at Panoply Performance Laboratory
as part of Performancy Forum
curated by Esther Neff & PPL

Performed 17 April 2015
at the Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts
as part of as part of ¡Té Lo Perdiste!
curated by Anabel Vázquez Rodríguez