Amnesia colonial (estupor)

Claudia Claremi


Amnesia Colonial is a set of several audiovisual pieces that gather different cultural practices and social spaces in which the contemporary "oblivion" towards the colonial legacy is manifested, but in which at the same time it is discovered how the colonial order is reactivated and how it survives.

Within this series, Amnesia colonial (estupor) is a video constructed from sounds and images that document the Three Kings Parade in the city of Alcoy (Alicante). The Christmas tradition charged with an orientalist aesthetic in which blackface is practiced. The project is a sensorial, hypnotic and disturbing filmic essay on structural racism, colonial forgetfulness, whiteness and its ways of operating.

Since 1885, between music bands, camels, torches and fireworks, the Three Kings of the Orient parade through the city of Alcoy on January 5th, accompanied by hundreds of pagans who hand out gifts to the children. The pagans, also known as els negrets, are young people who dress up as uniformed servants, with their faces painted black and red around their mouths. In the Alcoy festival it is not recognized that originally els negrets represented people of African descent and probably enslaved so the celebration takes place in total disconnection with the meaning of what is being represented.

Amnesia colonial (estupor) explores, in this festivity, other meanings that question what is apparently innocuous because it has been culturally established and naturalized, as well as the convenience of annulling the other meanings of what it represents. The piece proposes an immersive aesthetic experience that allows the viewer to connect with his or her own ethical and political questions, entering a state of mind, a suspended historical time, a spiraling phenomenon.

Technical datasheet

  • Title: Amnesia colonial (estupor)
  • Direction: Claudia Claremi
  • Production: 2020.
  • Duration: 00:11:40
  • Original format: HD 1920x1080
  • License: Creative Commons