Installations
From the 8th of September to the 24th of November, Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana presented a comprehensive programme featuring installations, archives and performances by the participants of the edition.
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Por arriba de Kalunga Batalla [On top of The Line of Water Which Divides the Upper World from the Underworld]
- TypeInstallation
- ParticipantJosé Bedia
- VenueMonastery of Sant Cugat
![Por arriba de Kalunga Batalla [On top of The Line of Water Which Divides the Upper World from the Underworld], 1995 © José Bedia. Photo © Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana : Cecília Coca.jpg](/media/m15-bucket.ams3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/62e75e81f2abb5ec4b9700d31f9f0c94c6cfc47d.jpg)
Por arriba de Kalunga Batalla [On top of The Line of Water Which Divides the Upper World from the Underworld], 1995 © José Bedia. Photo © Manifesta 15 Barcelona Metropolitana / Cecília Coca
José Bedia is a key figure in the resurgence of Cuban art in the early 1980s. He became a Palo priest before he was deployed to Angola as a member of the Cuban military. Palo is an Afro-Cuban religion that can be traced back to the Bakongo people and was transported to Cuba by slaves. Those engaged in this spiritual practice are distinguished by their belief in natural powers and their worshiping of their ancestors’ spirits. Bedia’s service in this role is reflected in his artistic practice, particularly in his visualising of spiritual traditions, rituals and beliefs of African and South American pre-Hispanic people, whose enduring and collective impact he tracks to the present. Over the course of his career, he has engaged with religion, mythology and mestizaje culture while developing his own interpretation of the complex relationships between humans, more-than-humans and the universe. This interpretation is informed by his knowledge of cosmovision, which he has gained as part of his priesthood. In Bedia’s painting, a horizon line divides two universes. This line is the kalunga, a Kikongo word meaning “threshold between worlds”. Below the kalunga, according to the Kongolese cosmogram, lies the world where the ancestral spirits reside. The physical world is located above the line, where, in this work, we see a boat – a reference both to the Atlantic slave trade of yesteryear and to migration patterns that persist into the present, as migrants cross oceans in dangerous journeys. Sadly, the spectre of death looms over these journeys, as signified by the skull which looms over the work.
1995
Acrylic on canvas
210 × 420 cm
Courtesy of the Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC)
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