PRESENTATION: Daniela Ortiz-The Rebellion of the Roots

In paintings, textile works, ceramics, children’s books, and installations, Daniela Ortiz develops anti­racist and anti­colonial narratives as counterpart to colonialisms that persist to this day. She confronts those players and power holders responsible for the institutional and structural racism that manifests itself, among other things, in the abusive and human rights­violating control of immigration and borders. The focus on craft media in the artistic practice of Daniela Ortiz stems from her increasing interest in shifting away from the aesthetics of Eurocentric conceptual art.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Kölnischer Kunstverein Archive

In her first institutional solo exhibition of Daniela Ortiz in Germany and, under the title “Nurtured by the defeat of the colonizers our seeds will raise” shows new, context­specific series of works together with existing works. “The Rebellion of the Roots” (2020) depicts a series of situations in which tropical plants, that have been kidnapped from European botanical gardens and greenhouses, are being protected and nurtured by the spirits of racialized people who died in the hands of European racism. These plants find their own way to confront and make justice in regard to those politicians responsible for institutional and structural racism. Accompanying the exhibition and specific to this series of works the artist book The Rebellion of the Roots, 2021 has been published by Kölnischer Kunstverein. “ABC of Racist Europe” (2017) consists of an alphabet that proposes an anti­racist narrative. The project unfolds in the form of a children’s book and an installation of individual images that evoke the letters usually found in the classrooms of children’s schools. It addresses the relationship of the current migration control system and  its connection with coloniality and colonialisms, where several figures of anti­racist and anti­colonial resistance are mentioned. “The children are not of the Wolf” (2021) is a puppet theater play contextualized in Italy that narrates the history of a child taken away from his mother by a female  wolf. The animal represents the institutional authorities that impose the removal of custodies under racist, misogynist and classist laws. The story questions the  imposed idea that children belong to the state and not to their communities finding the historical grounds of this interpretation in fascist and colonial Italy. “Samuel and Naseb, a resistance Story in Seven Pranks” (2021) narrates the alliance story of two Namibian children that overcome eugenicists plans through seven pranks – based on the stories of Wilhelm Busch’s Max and Moritz – done to those scientists and colonial authorities that try to impose violence to the reproductive rights of global south communities.

Daniela Ortiz is a Peruvian-born artist, committed to an anti-racist and anti-colonial discourse in her practice. She currently lives in Spain, a country whose passport’s front page includes an illustration of the ships that Columbus sailed toward the so-called “Discovery of America”. In one work from 2014, ‘Réplica’, Ortiz knelt in front of Spaniards celebrating the 522nd anniversary of the “discovery” of America. The action reproduced the gesture of a kneeling indigenous man in front of Spanish friar Bernardo Boyl, immortalized in dozens of monuments: a sting for a country that, for Ortiz, is as racist as European migration policies. The recent debate around the tearing down of statues, like those of Christopher Columbus, is cause for joy for this creator. We spoke to her about some of her works that relate directly to this political moment, such as “El ABC de la Europa racista” (The ABCs of Racist Europe) (2017) [download here], a book created to educate children and help them in pointing out and denouncing racist actions, or her ‘Monumentos anti-coloniales’ (Anti-Colonial Monuments) (2018), a set of hand-painted ceramic figurines that are suggestions to replace five Columbus monuments located in the cities of New York, Los Angeles, Lima, Madrid and Barcelona.

Photo: Daniela Ortiz, Rebellion of the Roots, 2021. Book cover, © Daniela Ortiz, Courtesy the artist and Kölnischer Kunstverein

Info: Kölnischer Kunstverein, Hahnenstraße 6, 50667 Cologne, Germany, Duration: 13/10/2021-12/1/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, https://koelnischerkunstverein.de