Emilia Moscoso Borja
Ecuadorian percussionist, composer, and art educator based in Los Angeles CA. The original work that she develops transits between experimental and popular music based on Latin American rhythms. She has played in numerous musical formations of different styles, always looking for versatility and diversity in her repertoire and musical experiences. Throughout her career, education and cultural production parallel to her artistic practice has become a priority."
Amnesia Obligatoria
Experimental piece part of a series of soundscapes for an exhibition dedicated to Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo).
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo is a human rights organization with the goal of finding the children stolen and illegally adopted during the Argentine dictatorship. As of June 2019, their efforts have resulted in finding 130 grandchildren.
“The organization was founded in 1977 to locate children kidnapped during the repression, some of them born to mothers in prison who were later ""disappeared"", and to return the children to their surviving biological families. It was believed that at the time it was likely that around 30,000 had disappeared between the ages of 16-35; around 30% were women and of those women, around 3% were pregnant. The work of the Grandmothers, assisted by United States genetics scientist Mary-Claire King, had led to the location of more than 10 percent of the estimated 500 children kidnapped or born in detention centers, as well as identify almost seventy-one of those children which during the military era were illegally adopted, with their identities originally hidden.” (Taken from: https://abuelas.org.ar/)
The piece was composed by mixing everyday sounds, melodies, samplers of the grandmother's interviews and traditional bagualas songs. The main element, the bombo legüero drum, is present in the piece representing their inner voice that will never shut down.
Poem:
“El miedo seca la boca, moja las manos y mutila. El miedo de saber nos condena a la ignorancia; el miedo de hacer nos reduce a la impotencia. La dictadura militar, miedo de escuchar, miedo de decir, nos convirtió en sordomudos. Ahora la democracia, que tiene miedo de recordar, nos enferma de amnesia; pero no se necesita ser Sigmund Freud para saber que no hay alfombra que pueda ocultar la basura de la memoria.” Desmemoria 2 _ Eduardo Galeano
“Fear dries the mouth, wets the hands and mutilates. The fear of knowledge condemns us to ignorance; the fear of acting reduces us to impotence. The military dictatorship, afraid to listen, afraid to say, made us deaf and dumb. Now democracy, which is afraid to remember, makes us sick with amnesia; but you don't need to be Sigmund Freud to know that there is no carpet that can hide the garbage of memory.” Desmemoria 2 _ Eduardo Galeano