Nefandus, 2013

The work in the MACBA Collection, Nefandus, follows two men as they canoe down the Don Diego River in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in the Colombian Caribbean, surrounded by a ‘wild’ and beautiful landscape. One is indigenous, the other a Spanish-speaker, and they recount stories of abominable (nefandos, hence the title) sins and crimes, and acts of sodomy that took place in South America during the Spanish conquest. ‘The landscape does not reflect what it has witnessed. [...] We need instruments, documentation, signs’, says one of the two protagonists. Later, he explains: ‘This is a conquered river and an accomplice; its clear waters disguise scarred riverbeds where pre-Hispanic ethnic groups saw their bodies floating.’ Although it has been well documented that the Spanish conquerors used sex as a weapon of domination, what do we know about homoerotic traditions in the pre-Hispanic world? Transmitted via Catholic missions and propagated through wars during the conquest, how did Christian morality transform the indigenous peoples’ relationship to sex? Nefandus carefully observes the landscape, its movement and its sounds to obtain clues to stories that have been ignored and stigmatised in many historiographical accounts.