“In Looting, my mouth acts as a metaphor for my land,” Galindo said. For this performance, she had eight fillings, made of pure Guatemalan gold, inserted into her molars by a dentist. She then traveled to Germany, where the fillings were extracted. All that remains is the gold: imprints of her mouth that resemble tiny sculptures from an imaginary archaeological museum. Looting enacts the violence of extractive economies, like mining, as well as the violence by which many artifacts have historically entered museum collections.
Gallery label from Chosen Memories, April 30–September 9, 2023
