Havana (Cuba), 2020

Glez, dressed in white, stands before an immaculate wall—a canvas without a wound. A thick liquid trembles in her hands: not just pigment but transfigured blood, a trace of what has been taken. With force, her palms break into the whiteness. The imprint burns, dragging emptiness with it, leaving behind the marks of a body that refuses to disappear. The violence inscribed upon the female body becomes testimony—a cry against femicide, a denunciation of the attempts to erase them.

This performance pays homage to Ana Mendieta, a pioneer of gestural art in the 1980s. Like in Untitled (Blood Sign #2/Body Tracks), Glez uses blood to symbolize life and sacrifice, exploring femininity, violence, and resistance. Both artists transform whiteness into an indelible testimony. The work reclaims the memory of the disappeared, especially Indigenous women silenced by structural violence that marginalizes them.

The white wall becomes a body that bleeds. Glez’s hands drag the liquid, leaving a mark that transcends—a cry against oblivion. Blood covers and transforms, creating a memory that cannot be erased. This act is resistance against erasure, a call to presence for those lost, particularly Indigenous women whose lives have been taken in contexts of exclusion and violence.

The imprint on the wall remains as a visual and physical testimony. Pain turns into art—a trace that lingers in collective memory. The performance extends beyond the moment; its resonance lives on in the mark and the captured images. Homage to Ana Mendieta invokes one of the most influential figures in gestural art and affirms the resilience of the female body against forgetting. The work speaks of permanence, of the imprint that will not fade. Through blood, art becomes memory and force. In this space, violence is transformed into testimony, where the body is reclaimed as sacred, and where the absence of so many women is returned to history with the power of an act that demands justice.

María Pérez Marín