Ana Mendieta: Ritual

Ana Mendieta's "Silueta Works in Mexico" are provocative in that they combine earth and body, which she calls "earth-body sculpture," to represent a spiritual connection between Mendieta's personal figure and her homeland of Cuban. Mendieta once said that she has been “carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland during my adolescence.” Mendieta's works carry many references and traditions of her estranged homeland, one of which is Santeria- a spiritual religion worshipping the "orishas". These particular pieces caught my attention because they seemed so power yet somehow vulnerable, akin to the topics they represent (women and the earth). The outline of a woman's body imprinted on the earth's surface exudes power yet also connotes interdependence; the lines, contours, and shapes of human and earth seem to blend as perhaps their roles too may coincide in Mendieta's work.