Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailing of the Land/Soil)

We invite you to join LACE, LAND, and Jackie Amézquita and follow Gemidos’s procession for a powerful weekend of grieving, healing, and community across Los Angeles. On Saturday, caravan participants will begin the day at MOCA Geffen where the artist will kick off the procession with a performance. The trucks carrying Gemidos de la Tierra—twelve panels listing the names of individuals who died in ICE detention centers—will then lead the caravan. Participants in their cars will follow a route designed by Amézquita which includes detention centers and anti-immigrant corporations across Los Angeles. On Sunday, participants will follow the artwork to visit pro-immigrant rights and well-being organizations around the city, concluding the procession at MacArthur Park and with a special closing celebration. Drivers should anticipate driving for approximately 40 miles on Saturday, and 18 miles on Sunday.

The closing celebration will be held at MacArthur Park (7th & S Park View St.) from 3–5pm and will feature a special performance by Dorian Wood and Michael Corwin and free tamales provided by Across Our Kitchen Tables for the first 100 guests. Eduardo’s Tamales will be on site providing additional tamales for sale. Vegetarian options will be available.

About Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil)

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) by Jackie Amézquita addresses the cruel and fatal reality of detainment camps that immigrants encounter upon their arrival to the U.S. (List of Deaths in ICE Custody). The names of the deceased are created with soil from the state where the individual died, and combined with cornflour (masa), salt and rain water to symbolize that despite their death these individuals still inhabit a physical space.

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) becomes a place of healing, memorializing, and encouraging activism. The names of children who were victims of the detention centers are created with the documents that published their deaths, and mixed with chia seeds that ultimately will sprout from the letters themselves. Due to each name being created with its own unique mixture of soil and other natural ingredients, each name possesses its own unique texture and color palette, honoring each individual rather than reducing their lives to a statistic as the U.S. Government does.

On March 25 and 26, this mobile public installation will be activated in Los Angeles and surroundings. The panels will be transported on trucks, to be exhibited while en route to each destination, accompanied by a caravan of cars. This project makes visible two public lists of deaths from ICE Detention Centers in 2003–2023 that will be presented in front of detention centers and pro-immigrant mutual aid organizations.

Amézquita’s project is integral to making the migration crisis visible. Through her use of transporting public documents that were found on ICE’s website (now removed), it is imperative to continue the dialogue about immigrants and the ways in which state-sanctioned violence and death are legalized and actively inflicted against migrants seeking refuge and a better quality of life.

This project was initiated by LACE’s former Chief Curator and Director of Programming Daniela Lieja Quintanar, who invited Amézquita to work with LACE and LAND for the execution of the mobile public art component of Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil); Lieja Quintanar continues to support as an advisor.

About the Artist

Jackie Amézquita (b. 1985) is a Central American artist based in Los Angeles, California. Amézquita was born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, and migrated to the United States in 2003. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from ArtCenter College of Design and an Associate degree in Visual Communications from Los Angeles Valley College. She recently completed her Master of Fine Arts in the New Genres program at the University of California, Los Angeles (2022).

About our Performers

Dorian Wood is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Her intent of “infecting” spaces and ideologies with her artistic practice is born from a desire to challenge traditions and systems that have contributed to the marginalization of people. Wood has performed at institutions that include The Broad, Los Angeles, CA (2018), Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, NY (2023), Museo Nacional Del Prado, Madrid, Spain (2019), the City Hall of Madrid, Spain (2015) and Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris, Mexico City, Mexico (2019), and at festivals that include Festivals Kometa, Riga, Latvia (2016), Moers Festival, Germany (2017), Cully Jazz Festival, Switzerland (2015) and Saint Ghetto Festival, Bern, Switzerland (2017). From 2019 to 2020, Wood completed several successful international tours with her chamber orchestra tribute to Chavela Vargas, XAVELA LUX AETERNA. In 2022, Wood debuted her tribute to the singer Lhasa De Sela, entitled LHASA, at the Festival Internacional de Arte Sacro in Madrid, in collaboration with singer Carmina Escobar and composer Adrián Cortés. As a visual artist, Wood has created illustrations and video installations that have been exhibited in galleries around the world. They have also directed several short films, among them “The angel” (2023), Low’s “Disappearing” video (2021), “American Savagery” (2021), “FAF” (2021), “The World’s Gone Beautiful” (2020), “PAISA” (2019, co-directed with Graham Kolbeins), “O” (2014) and “La Cara Infinita” (2013). Wood is a recipient of the Creative Capital Award (2020) and the Art Matters Foundation grant (2020), and is also a MacDowell fellow (2022) and a Loghaven fellow (2022). Wood has released over a dozen recordings, most recently the album Invasiva (Dragon’s Eye Recordings, 2022). In 2023, Wood debuted Canto de Todes, a 12-hour composition and installation, at REDCAT in Los Angeles. www.dorianwood.com

Michael Corwin is a musician based in Los Angeles, and a graduate of CalArts. He has worked with artists like Correatown, Liz Pappademas and the experimental ensemble Killsonic, and has been a frequent collaborator with Dorian Wood for over 15 years. As a solo artist, he released the album Andalucía (2009) under the name Red Maids. Corwin is also an accomplished furniture maker.

About our Collaborators

Across Our Kitchen Tables curates, organizes, and hosts events and conversations that center BIPOC chefs and food systems workers. We consider the present and future of food through thoughtful dialogue on topics including cultural foodways, entrepreneurship, food activism, and health and wellness. https://www.acrossourkitchentables.org

Eduardo’s Tamales will be selling tamales from his newly donated Un Dia de Arcoíris, a tamalero cart designed by LA-based artist Ruben Ochoa for street vendors in partnership with Revolutionary Carts and Inclusive Action for the City. Ochoa has partnered with Revolutionary Carts and Inclusive Action for the City to raise funds and donated custom wrapped street vendor carts with Ochoa’s graphics functioning as social sculptures. https://www.inclusiveaction.org/ruben-ochoa-art

About LAND

LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division) is a non-profit organization founded in 2009 committed to curating site-specific public art exhibitions in Los Angeles and beyond. LAND believes that all people deserve the opportunity to experience innovative contemporary art in their everyday existence, to enhance their quality of life and ways of thinking about their community. In turn, artists deserve the opportunity to realize projects in the public realm, unsupported through traditional institutions. LAND brings contemporary art outside of the walls of museums and galleries, into our shared public spaces and unique sites. nomadicdivision.org

Support

Gemidos de la Tierra (Wailings of the Land/Soil) is supported by Angeles Art Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Mohn LAND Grant, AltaMed, and National Performance Network (NPN).

Header Image: Jackie Amezquita, Gemidos de la Tierra, (2020-22). Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber. Graphic design by Carolina Ibarra-Mendoza.