POPSICLES

Cile | 1984-86 | 5 min

As often happens with women artists, Popsicles represents a peculiar item in an otherwise lesser-known body of work produced by Chilean artist Gloria Camiruaga. Filmed between 1984 and 1986 in the States and Chile, her video is made of extreme close-ups of young women intent on sucking something that, at first sight, look like colourful ice pops. A couple of shots later, we realize that the things they hold in their hands are toy soldiers. In the background, we hear the women recite the Hail Mary while their lips get impregnated with the fluorescent colours released by the popsicles. In a matter of minutes, Camiruaga weaves a hypnotic and desecrating litany whose cumbersome offscreen space is Pinochet’s military regime in Chile. With a power reversal, the oppressive political apparatus is profaned by an innocent gesture, presenting these young women as dissident subjects par excellence, then as now. (t.p.)