Angélica Chávez Cáceres participated in Domestic Systemic Pandemic with her video work 'Power ignores that water boils / El poder ignora que el agua hierve'. It was shown in the exhibition at Detroit gallery and online, still viewable here on the website 

'Power ignores that water boils - El poder ignora que el agua hierve' (2020) 4:40 min : looped video, by Angélica Chávez Cáceres

The video presents the domestic situation of boiling water as a metaphor for the capacity or potential of the uprising in the face of oppression, something is going to happen. Structured from fragments, the piece presents a conversation with trauma, anger, powerlessness and its potential to boil and transform. Power ignores that water boils refers to the fact that power (the state, capital, husband, church, family) ignores the “boiling” capacity of women defenders or women who in their daily lives resist and put their body at the frontline in order to end situations of oppression that affect various areas of our lives.

Power ignores that water boils

The water boils among other things, because their voices live in my throat

I'm home

and they tell me a secret

the uprising is done with the body

the female defenders sing

Power eats power

the scream is a song

Crying is rebellion

The kicks are redoubled with every attack

While the water boils

They tell me a secret

the uprising is done with the body

I collect their fragments

I don't know their names but they live in my mouth

My foot and my leg

for some of them their tracks were never found

Before leaving they gave me the gesture and the force

Power ignores that water boils

•.•.•.•

El vídeo presenta la situación doméstica del agua hirviendo como metáfora de la capacidad o potencialidad  de la sublevación frente a la opresión, algo va a pasar. A manera de fragmentos presenta una conversación con el trauma, la rabia, impotencia y su potencialidad de ebullir y transformar. El poder ignora que el agua hierve remite a que el poder (el estado, el capital, el marido, la iglesia, la familia)  ignora  la capacidad de “ebullición” de  las mujeres defensoras o mujeres que en su vida diaria resisten y ponen el cuerpo para acabar con situaciones de opresión que afectan diversos ámbitos de nuestras vidas.

El poder ignora que el agua hierve

El agua hierve entre otras cosas, porque sus voces  viven en mi  garganta

Estoy en casa 

y ellas  me cuentan un secreto

la sublevación se hace con el cuerpo

las defensoras cantan

La potencia se come al poder

el grito es canto

El llanto es rebelión

Las patadas se redoblan con cada ataque

Mientras el  agua hierve

Me cuentan un secreto

la sublevación se hace con el cuerpo

Recojo sus fragmentos

No sé sus nombres pero habitan en mi boca

Mi pie y mi pierna

de algunas  nunca se encontraron sus huellas

antes de irse me regalaron el gesto  y la potencia 

El poder ignora que el agua hierve

Angélica Chávez Cáceres (b. 1979, Lima) has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She has a Master’s degree in Gender and Development from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru.

Angélica is a founding member of the collectives: “Punku” Cultural Association (2013) dedicated to developing art-education-community projects in public spaces. In addition to the invasive of public and private spaces feminist collective,  "Hysterix" (2012).

She has carried out numerous collective artistic interventions / actions in Lima, Cusco, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba, Biella, Mexico City and Stockholm. Among them, in 2018, the project “Giro Panfronterizo: Feminist Camp on the Peru-Bolivia-Chile Border” was part of the project and its subsequent exhibition was at the gallery, “Gabriela Mistral”, in Santiago de Chile. In the interior of Lima, Angélica maintains a constant participation in various collective mural interventions such as the wall tribute to "Working women of Peru" and the wall for the "Decriminalization of Abortion #DecidirNoHaceLibres" (2018-2019). This is currently on the walls of Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

Currently she works with various media such as drawing, ceramics, soundscape and video both individually and collectively. She has been recognized with an Honorable Mention in the National Painting Salon of San Marcos - Peru.

www.mutis.wordpress.com