NEFANDUS

of MOTTA Carlos

UNITED STATES, 2013, 00:13:04

Production : MOTTA Carlos
Genre : Video art
Keyword : History, Politics, Society, Homosexuality

Summary :
In "Nefandus" two men travel by canoe down the Don Diego river in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the Colombian Caribbean, a landscape of “wild” beauty. The men, an indigenous man and a Spanish speaking man, tell stories about pecados nefandos [unspeakable sins, abominable crimes]; acts of sodomy that took place in the Americas during the conquest. It has been documented that Spanish conquistadores used sex as a weapon of domination, but what is known about homoerotic pre-hispanic traditions? How did Christian morality, as taught by the Catholic missions and propagated through war during the Conquest, transform the natives’ relationship to sex? "Nefandus" attentively looks at the landscape, its movement and its sounds for clues of stories that remain untold and have been largely ignored and stigmatized in historical accounts.


"Nefandus" is part of "Nefandus Trilogy" with "Naufragios" (Shipwreck) and "La visión de los vencidos" (The Defeated).

Made while in residency at The Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice, New York

to print