Street in times of pandemic
Roaring behind masks
This mural was painted in the town of San Pedro Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. It was made in May 2020 at the beginning of the Pandemic, with aerosol and vinyl paint, measuring 5 x 10m.
“We were working in toctiuco, a neighborhood in the mountains of Quito, Ecuador. We had just organized a festival in the main square and I was doing a live painting on a pallet, joined by neighborhood musicians, a photo exhibition of the mingas, cardboards so that the children could draw. And in the background, a participatory mural, a collective map, an event billboard, games on the floor. Except for the rain, everything had gone bacan. To which Pepe Claudio calls these two guys who were always wandering around, to take my painting to the community house. They stand next to the pallet for the photo and tell me to put my signature on it so it looked like they painted it – they always throw that joke and I really like the appropriation because we all laugh together.
I remember that one mounted it on his back and began to zigzag downhill, until it was lost among the people, I thought goodbye pallet.
I wonder where are these friends now, those homeless and silenced by face masks. How many stories do we tell, from the confortable side, and how many others are never heard. What facets do we know within the same city, what realities.
The anti-famous, the lost, the nobody, the ones who do not enter the radar, the ones who do not have a health system, the ones who are afraid to go to a hospital, the ones who are already sick from the virus of capitalism.
There is always a jaguar behind their mouth roaring, and if we get close enough we can hear them.”
