benjamin lundberg torres sánchez

El Montón
Performance. (2017)

I present a table setting, piled high with un montón of food. The food, heavy with starch, is the stuff of my Colombian mother’s kitchen: arroz, yuca, papas, pasta, arepas. I eat the food, filling myself past the point of comfort — as I do when I visit my Colombian mother’s home.

While I eat, I repeat these phrases:
Debo terminar. (I must finish) Debo acabarmelo por que soy un hijo responsable. (I must finish it because I am a dutiful son.) No quiero ser otro hobre obstinado e insistente en tu vida. (I don’t want to be another stubborn and insistent man in your life.) Debo comermelo todo. (I must eat everything.) Debo terminar porque participo en patriarcado. (I must finish because I participate in patriarchy.

Slowly, amidst my refrains, I begin to intermingle the story of my birth parents and how I came into being, revealing that I was conceived through violence perpetrated by my birth mother’s brother-in-law: my tia’s husband.

Those present are then invited to share the labor of eating el montón.

Performance History:

Re Performed 25 June 2017
at The Museum of the Moving Image, Queens
as part of BlackLot Art Fest
curated by Tina Stipanovic

Performed 29 January 2017
at the AS220 Blackbox
as part of LUNA LOBA: El Azufre
curated by Shey Rivera