Oleñka Carrasco’s Patria is the story of a life, but it is also the story of our lives. The etymology of the word patria can be traced back to the Latin word pater (father), which carries nostalgia, joy and sometimes pain, but always comes from the heart. It is embodied in the figure of the father, but also in the fatherland – the land of our ancestors, where we come from, so dear to us. Not to mention the red land of Venezuela, which is the leitmotif that runs through the series.
Red as the anger provoked by the double loss of father and homeland, and exacerbated by the physical distance caused by exile. This is a country where “so many people die that the graveyards are not finished on time”, a country that inevitably falls apart on the other side of the Atlantic, just as the figure of the father falls apart, more than 7,568 kilometres from the artist, who now lives in France.
Patria is Oleñka Carrasco’s response to this forced exile, far from the family home, in a mourning lived in a “borrowed house”. Oleñka Carrasco’s artistic gesture has a particular power, evoking personal and universal perspectives and calling for survival, while freeing us from the weight of our histories, losses and traumas, embarking on a journey of restoration of inner strength.
Emmanuelle Halkin