Ezuakakne

About the work

Ezuakakne (2025) is an audiovisual composition and live performance developed as part of Christian Rosales Fonseca’s doctoral artistic research with Kággaba people in the Sierra Nevada de Gonawindúa, Colombia.

The work emerged from encounters with Joaquín Dingula and José Manuel, whose decisions about how they wished to be filmed shaped the images from the outset. Joaquín appears from behind at a sacred viewpoint and later silhouetted against the sun, while José Manuel is seen through his hands as he plays with a spinning object made from natural materials. Their wishes not to show their faces became part of the compositional process, establishing what could be shown and what would remain unseen.

Recordings made in these places are brought together with other sounds recorded and produced by Rosales Fonseca. Crackles from Konrad Theodor Preuss’s historical phonograph recordings are placed alongside sounds that evoke the rotation of wax cylinders, at times blurring the distinction between archival traces and contemporary recordings.

During the live performance, Rosales Fonseca improvises with natural objects, binoculars, and a drum containing steel balls amplified through contact microphones. His gestures enter into dialogue with the projected images, while his body casts shadows that sometimes follow the filmed actions and sometimes interrupt or obscure them.

Through these interventions, Ezuakakne makes his own position part of the composition, including the ways he participates in, transforms, and inevitably remains outside certain experiences. Ezuakakne does not attempt to resolve this distance, but allows it to remain part of the encounter.