A Luta Continua

A Luta Continua (2020), Digital 2min 25sec, color, sound

A luta continua translates to “the struggle continues” in English. It was the rallying cry of the FRELIMO movement during Mozambique’s war for independence from Portugal; an armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule, and in favor of socialism.

Repurposing this slogan for use in a broader sense, this video and installation attempt to speak to the invisible pockets of joy that can be found within the catastrophes of liminal and unreliable government. The dance track (produced by Cole Roberts) serves as an energetic backdrop to a fluttering series of clips shot at the edge of a pier in South Philadelphia. Within these clips lies a duality: the gradual closing in on the sparkle of a wave, and three anonymous characters in ski masks clinging onto a black sheet of fabric.

The fabric itself contains the potential to function as both an invisibility cloak and a flag to a nullified country. In the installation its ripples mirror those of the water superimposed upon it, a movement reflective of “the struggle” itself. This water is a site of imagined voyage, as a gradual zoom implies a dive that is merely digital; the figures remain docked to shore. In one clip the characters are seen engulfed in the fabric, in another they play a sort of “Ring-Around-the-Rosie” with it (the origins of which are based in the English folklore that arose from the Great Plague in 1665), an obvious nod to the Covid-19 pandemic. Bringing this motif into the contemporary, it speaks to a shared effort to perform a “return to normal” in vain.

The aspect ratio is set to 9:16, optimized for viewing on an iPhone, and for viewing on the fabric itself in the installation, hung vertically from the ceiling and projected within a dark room. A fan propels the fabric into a gentle rhythmic movement at the center of the gallery.