The word Bembé comes from the Yoruba people of West Africa. The term "bembé" can refer to a variety of things depending on the context, including a type of drum, an ethnic minority, a religious ceremony, a style of dance, a genre of music, a wooden platform, and more. A Bembé, in Puerto Rican slang, is a massive party. El Bembé: Celebrating Life and Death en la Sala will be my second multimedia installation project, building off of my recent project El Salón: Reimagining Self-love, Rituals, and Healing in the Kitchen in partnership with the Boston Center for the Arts.

My new project will forge a space to celebrate life, death, family, and memories from my childhood living room. This project will include footage of celebrations in weddings, communions, birthdays, holidays, and more from VHS home tapes that will be projected alongside paintings of social gatherings, paired with the original images framed on the walls. Selected objects will act as instruments for audience members to recall memories, honor and connect with our ancestors, and heal old wounds of the loss of loved ones.

El Bembé!: Celebrating Life and Death en la Sala

This fall I worked on and installed the first iteration of El Bembé during my residency at the Kala Art Institute. During my two-week residency, I digitalized family VHS tapes and combined them with newly recorded VHS tapes of family events. The tapes include events like my birthday and my eldest and youngest sister's birthday. I collected items commonly found in a living room to recreate my childhood living room.

Mother and son dance at Yazmine's Birthday Party

Ancestral Altar

Ancestors included:

Luisa "Wi" Ramos Cepeda Juan Carols Furingo and his wife

Reyes "Rosa" Rivera Flores

Modesto Pinet

Luis Remigio Gonzales Castillo

Esaú Navarro

Juanita "Juana"

and for those erased from

history

lost photos

collective memory

axe

Life.

Death.

Party.