GLORIA
Documentary – Audiovisual Essay
40 minutes
Language: English
2018
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In 1885, the story of mine, a relatively young country was written. In an epic XIX century style eleven stanzas of a poem retell the battles and the heroic actions that led towards the recognition of this country as independent. The birth of a sovereign state was there glorified, immortalized and cherished. Praised there, were the heroes whose blood was shed, and cursed, the enemies by then defeated.
In 1887 this poem was musicalized and the song that sprung as outcome was instituted as a definitive trait of identity for all of us citizens of this particular country. The story, which unravels throughout the years after the anthem’s instauration, is nevertheless, anything but glorifiable. The independent shout we learn through it, proud, patriotic still breaks-through our chests, which have failed to recognize the fragility of the consolidated state, over and over.
This is the story of my country, but in a way, it embodies the story of most -if not all. It is the story of the notion that defines countries and that keeps them abysmally separated the story of the patriarchal system that keeps these distances irreconcilable, sharp and bitter.
THE PROJECT
Gloria is a 40 minute long film that can be classified somewhere between a subjective documentary and an audiovisual essay, based on a two-year long research upon the relationship between language, nationalism and identity. The backbone of the project is the national anthem of Colombia, it’s 11 strophes serve as guide to unfold an analytical reflection of the language and symbolism typical of the patriarchal systems of XVIII and XIX centuries and its further inherence in todays nationalism around the world.
Gloria integrates an archive of pictures taken from the public collection of the Royal Museum of Armed Forces and Military History of Brussels and a collection of found footage, fragments of movies, paintings and music that relates or presents what the text is reflecting upon.
The text is an essay based on the opinion article “La horrible noche” written by Colombian Writer and novelist William Ospina for the Colombian newspaper El Espectador along with my own personal reflections upon the subject.
JUSTIFICATION AND RELEVANCE
The project Gloria is framed within two of the most significant democratic events in recent Colombian history. The first, which originated the research was the plebiscite of 2016 where the majority of the citizens of the country voted against the agreements of the peace treaty made between the national government and the lead members of the guerrilla group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - Las FARC (agreements, which would later still be implemented in spite of the results of the plebiscite). And the Second, the presidential elections of 2018 where right wing candidate Iván Duque was elected president by majority of votes (one of his campaign policies being the modification to the agreements; modifications that endanger the feeble peace attained). This last event took place during the process of montage of the film and was of major relevance for the finalization of the project.
This two events; in my personal opinion were not only big failures of Colombian democracy, but not isolated since they related to a global trend that could be observed in other contemporary events like the Brexit, the presidential elections of the United States of America, refugee crisis of Middle east and African countries and the rise of right wing parties in many countries of Europe like France, Holland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Turkey among others.
As an artist I believe that is a crucial part for art to help understand and reflect upon the deep causes that origin these kinds of political conflicts, in order to aid the critical moment democracy is facing around the world. In that sense a project like Gloria proposes a necessary reevaluation of concealed nationalistic ideals and their unfathomable social divisions and inequalities. Gloria is a project that above all seeks to un-familiarize us from an imposed, arbitrary, patriarchal system in which we are born so to understand the causes upon which today’s political violence is rooted.