COLUMBUS GENOSIDA
As part of 2019’s Art Theorema - Imago Mundi Highlights, supported by Fabrica and Benetton Foundation, Okka was commissioned to create an artwork with a 10 x 12cm canvas. This task was met with “Columbus Genosida” (“Columbus is Genocide” in Indonesian). The image below is of the painting face-up, and from behind, a silver background against which is written in red: “http://bit.ly/columbusgenosida”, which leads the reader to this website, and the accompanying text, “an entanglement of throats”.
.ly belongs to Libya. Bit.ly is a corporation in the United States of America.
Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 12 cm, 2018.
an entanglement of throats
in the body of a girl,
imprint of americas unholy writ.
surviving genosida,
more than five hundred indigenous nations in a state:
corpus of time.
and in an archipelago,
body as declarative states of ruin—as well,
persistence of that which supremacist designs
should have rendered moot.
time is bearing down upon every girl’s body.
in 1965 and ’66, millions uprooted
from life by a force tracing seed
to 1492. our childhoods
a forced awakening to cirri
five governments foretold.
live corpus.
live time.
the javanese singer anggun
was once compared to pocahontas.
p. was a survivor; they took her,
they flurried her with gasps for life.
waters rise.
roots torn from soil
remain in earth
as the ghost of a breathing.
come here for it.
it’s here now,
was always.
breathe with.
every girl’s body bears down upon time.