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The Emancipating Opera

Voluspa Jarpa

NOME, Berlin

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Title
The Emancipating Opera
Gallery
NOME, Berlin
Year
2019
Duration
11 min 49 s
Format & Technical

Video HD, color, sound

LOOP Edition
Ed. 2024
Presented in LOOP by
NOME
  • Courtesy the artist and NOME

NOME exhibits Voluspa Jarpa’s video The Emancipating Opera (2019), which was originally presented in her solo exhibition at the Chilean Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2019. Written by Jarpa in collaboration with the sociologist Alberto Mayol, the film gives a unique format to the historical disputes between hegemonic and subordinated subjectivities. The Emancipating Opera takes up the musical form of the cantata and uses this genre from European musical history to create a narrative about power and emancipation. In the piece, voices come together to sing about the hegemonic psyche of European and US patriarchal colonizers and the subaltern psyche of marginalized social classes. Two protagonists mediate between these poles: the “arriero,” a traditional Chilean muleteer, and the transsexual singer and actress Daniela Vega. In Jarpa’s video, indigenous culture is contrasted with colonialist writings that sought to legitimize the subjugation of non-Western cultures with their discourse of devaluation.

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Voluspa Jarpa

Artist
www.voluspajarpa.com

1871, Rancagua

Voluspa  Jarpa

Voluspa Jarpa (b.1971, Rancagua, Chile) lives and works in Santiago de Chile. Her work is based upon a meticulous analysis of political, historical, and social documents, which she uses as a starting point to reflect upon notions of memory, trauma, violence, displacement, and resistance. One of the most prominent figures working in Chile today, Jarpa belongs to the first generation that was able to study following Pinochet’s military dictatorship and played a pivotal role in the country’s artistic revival in the 1990s. She was the winner of the inaugural edition of the Julius Baer Art Prize for Latin American Female Artists in 2021. She has participated in many international exhibitions including: Altered Views, Chilean Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, Italy (2019); BIENALSUR, Riyadh and Buenos Aires (2019); Proregress, 12th Shanghai Biennial (2018); 31st Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2014); and 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011).