Guadalupe Maravilla grounds his practice in autobiography and activism to make visible the embodied experience of contemporary migration, whose heroic feats are entangled with the lingering trauma of colonial violence and imperialism. These concerns are informed by his own battle with cancer, an illness he believes to be a physical manifestation of the stress of his perilous childhood journey to the United States in the 1980s.
At the centre of Maravilla’s installation are four Disease Throwers, which combine handmade elements with found objects he collected while retracing his route through Central America. The sculptures function both as shrines and healing instruments that can be played. Suspended from the ceiling are five large hammocks, each inscribed with a phrase from a song often sung to children to comfort their pain. Maravilla’s ethos of care extends to sound-healing ceremonies he leads in his installations for the public and for specific groups such as cancer communities and refugees.
In the current political climate, there is a heightened tension within Maravilla’s work between the metaphorical disease of xenophobia and the real physical toll it takes on the living. In the face of polarizing state violence, Maravilla attunes us to our bodies and to each other, offering his sonic balm as a vehicle for introspection and collectivity.
—Alex Klein
