‘A challenge to power’: Archival images of Bolivia’s queer carnival performers
Lucha. Luis Vela, a Rural Festival. 1973.
Source:‘A challenge to power’: Archival images of Bolivia’s queer carnival performers
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‘A challenge to power’: Archival images of Bolivia’s queer carnival performers
La China Morena Candy Vizcarra with three bears at the Festival of the Virgin of Urkupiña, Quillacollo, Cochabamba, Bolivia, c. 1972. Courtesy of Diversidad—Comunidad de Investigación Acción en Derechos y Ciudadanía (CIADEC) and David Aruquipa Pérez.
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‘A challenge to power’: Archival images of Bolivia’s queer carnival performers
La China Morena Candy Vizcarra at the festival of the district of San Antonia, La Paz, Bolivia, c. 1973. Courtesy of Diversidad—Comunidad de Investigación Acción en Derechos y Ciudadanía (CIADEC) and David Aruquipa Pérez.
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‘A challenge to power’: Archival images of Bolivia’s queer carnival performers
Ofelia (Carlos Espinoza) and Liz (Franz Hidalgo) at the rural festival of Huanuni, Oruro, Bolivia, 1976. Courtesy of Diversidad—Comunidad de Investigación Acción en Derechos y Ciudadanía (CIADEC) and David Aruquipa Pérez.
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‘A challenge to power’: Archival images of Bolivia’s queer carnival performers
Ofelia (Carlos Espinoza) at a private party with morenos and devils after the Carnival of Oruro, Bolivia, c. 1971. Courtesy of Diversidad—Comunidad de Investigación Acción en Derechos y Ciudadanía (CIADEC) and David Aruquipa Pérez.
Source:Ofelia (Carlos Espinoza) and Liz (Franz Hidalgo) at the rural festival of Huanuni, Oruro, Bolivia, 1976. Courtesy of Diversidad—Comunidad de Investigación Acción en Derechos y Ciudadanía (CIADEC) and David Aruquipa Pérez.
David Aruquipa Pérez’s images of Las Chinas Morenas highlight an often-overlooked fight for queer liberation
For many generations, the colour and chaos of fiestas populares have played a central role in Bolivian life. Taking place regularly throughout the country, and drawing on religious, cultural and indigenous traditions, these joyful patron-saint celebrations are riots of music, costume and choreographed dancing. Since the early 1960s, fiestas populares have been symbolised by La China Morena – a glamorous and joyful character, known for leading resplendent crowds in the popular dance of the Morenada.
During the 1960s and 70s, when only men were permitted to take part in fiestas populares celebrations, this feminine character was created and played by Two Spirit and travesti performers – identities associated, in this context, with third gender expression, homosexuality and femininity. Over time, these performers not only became a celebrated part of fiestas populares, but a transformational symbol of liberation for Bolivia’s queer community.
“It is important to show that history has omitted our stories and contributions, and that in both Bolivia and the UK, we have to continue making visible and rewriting our history with our own voices”
In Barbarella’s Kiss, a new exhibition at Auto Italia, London, artist and activist David Aruquipa Pérez presents his personal, powerful archive of images of Las Chinas Morenas Ofelia, Titina, Juana, Candy, Lucha, Diega and Barbarella. “The history of the Las Chinas Morenas reveals that the political struggles of liberation arise from the people,” Pérez says. “Especially working class, indigenous people, who live and fight for their sexuality daily.”
A member of Bolivian LGBTQ activist collective Familia Galán, Pérez first became involved with Las Chinas Morenas in 2009. Despite his years of work around queer liberation, even he had been unaware of the performers – whose contribution to the LGBTQ+ movements of the 1960s and 70s has been largely unrecognised – until this time. From here he began to research the community, eventually becoming the trusted guardian of their images.
“By the time I started my research, most of the Las Chinas Morenas were already elderly, between 70 and 80-years-old,” Pérez explains. “They told me their stories and at the same time they gave me their photographs. Many of the photographs were torn, or erased with markers – faces of men who they surely didn’t want to remember.”
While many of the images in Pérez’s collection show Las Chinas Morenas proud and jubilant in their signature combination of heavy makeup, thigh-high boots and traditional Bolivian costumes, these redacted photographs tell an equally important story. They speak to the events of a carnival in 1974, during which Barbarella approached and kissed president and dictator Hugo Banzer Súarez, leading Las Chinas Morenas to be banished from many fiestas populares.
The persecution that followed Barbarella’s kiss is echoed in the exhibition’s blacked-out images – and in the images it doesn’t show, those featuring Las Chinas Morenas who have sworn Pérez to secrecy until after their death. “That kiss was the kiss of prohibition, the kiss of the violation of rights, the kiss that became the trigger for the exclusion of travestis,” Pérez says. “But that kiss that Barbarella gave was a challenge to power.”
This power emanates from each of Perez’s small, often battered images. They exemplify culture as a place for dialogue, transgression and liberation. They show fiestas populares as spaces for the freedom of bodies, thoughts and creativity. They are evidence of a social and political resistance that existed in Bolivia in a way which is often forgotten.
“It is important to make visible that our bodies carry a marked history of fighting for our causes, for our freedom to live without prejudices,” Perez says. “It is important to show that history has omitted our stories and contributions, and that in both Bolivia and the UK, we have to continue making visible and rewriting our history with our own voices.”
