Jimmie Durham
image: (c) Juan Llaguno
Jimmie Durham’s and Maria Thereza Alves’ performance Virginia/Veracruz, also called Columbus Day, was enacted in Monterrey (Mexico), London and Madrid. The artists took on the role of “the colonized”, subaltern to the colonizer and therefore deprived of speech.
Columbus Day is a festivity that celebrates the arrival of Columbus in the American continent and Veracruz, Mexico, was the first Spanish settlement in the Americas. It was founded by Hernán Cortés, and is known as the place where the mestizo "race" has its roots. Virginia was the first permanent English colony in the New World and carries a history of slave labour, land stolen from Native American tribes, massacres of indians as well as being the scenery for the story of Pocahontas and John Smith.
