Eulàlia Rovira i Adrian Schindler. ‘The Plague, the Profit’

Focusing on carmine, a colour that the indigenous communities of Mesoamerica extracted from the cochineal centuries before the arrival of the settlers, “La plaga, el provecho” (The plague, the profit) retraces the interweaving of colonial extractivism, the displacement of species, baroque painting and the rise and fall of the Spanish empire. Composed of a stroboscopic sequence of macro-photographs that get close to the wear and tear of sensitive matter, the residues of a great trade and the hands of those who still take care of this insect, the video inquires whether a myopic approach can generate a counter-image to dominant narratives.