Filmmaker, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta: Ana Mendieta made over one hundred films and videos in her lifetime and all of these films tell a story in one way or another.
My name is Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, and I'm Ana Mendieta's niece. I'm also a filmmaker, and I oversee her films for the Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection.
What you see in this gallery are three films shot on Super 8. The Super 8 camera was made for consumer use. Artists in the 70’s loved it because it was inexpensive and easy to use—you could pop in the film cartridge and go out and shoot. If you look at Ana’s entire body of works on film, what she called "filmworks," you’ll see that most are made in either Iowa, Mexico, or Cuba because these locations are where she spent the most time.
Ana came to the United States as a 12-year-old with her sister, at the time when Castro came into power and her parents decided that it wasn't safe to be there anymore. So they were sent to Miami, and then from there, they were sent, of all places, to Iowa. Imagine being Cuban and coming to a country where you don't know the language, you don't fit in, and you think it's temporary. Of course, you're going to feel displaced. But Ana wasn't the kind of person who was going to let that get in her way.
Ana's first works really had to do with transformation and process, and she was very interested in this idea of becoming other. Ocean Bird (Washup) was made in 1974 in Mexico. Mexico was very special for her because it was the first time that she reconnected with her language. She was seeing people who looked like her, sounded like her—that must have been such a huge impact, to be with people who understood her. It gave her a sense of belonging again.
The next film, Untitled (Silueta Series) was made in Iowa. She also loved the idea of birth and rebirth—and gunpowder and fire are perfect mediums to relay that. This is a work with white gunpowder, and as it burns, it turns black. It's a transformation by fire.
The last film is an untitled sand sculpture that was made in 1981, in Guanabo, Cuba. She could have chosen to only shoot the sculpture in the sand and the beach, like she’s done in other pieces. But here she's saying, “No, it's important to look at where I am. I am here. I'm here in Cuba, in my homeland, and I want to remember this moment.”
It's easy to look at her body of work and only think about being displaced or being exiled. It's kind of like that question of "who am I? Where do I belong?" Because that question relates to everyone. "Where do we belong?" We're all humans. We're all connected. It doesn't matter if you were born here and you move over there, your home should be you.