30,000 steps to protest disappearance
Every Thursday the Madres de Plaza de Mayo gather in the centre of Argentina’s capital to protest their children’s disappearance. It’s been more than 30 years since the brutal military dictatorship kidnapped, murdered and vanished the 30,000 people now known as ‘Los Desaparecidos’ (The Disappeared), but the mother’s protests continue. Their demand, ‘aparición con vida’ (reappearance with life) has not wavered, even after confirmation of the death of their children. In many ways, it is a protest against disappearance itself. Against the power of an institution to deny personhood; to deny life.
The fact of their disappearance is the cause of my existence; it is the reason my father fled to Australia, and how he met my mother.
This work acknowledges the continuation of disappearance that is imprinted in my body – from my loss of language, to the Anglicisation of my name, to the stories of disappearance my father told me so often they became my own memories.
So I walk in remembrance. So I walk in protest. So I walk to inscribe.
“resisting is resisting, resisting is walking” – Hebe de Bonafini, Madre de Plaza de Mayo
This work is performed from sunrise to sunset.
Action
30,000 steps in a circle around a pile of rubble carrying a rock with my family name engraved on it to re-enact the protests against disappearance by the Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Alumni Lawn UNSW, Sydney (2017)
This work was presented through the UNSW School of Arts and Media with support from the Creative Practice Unit and supervision by Dr Theron Schmidt.
Photography: Michael Fee
