Enrique Ramirez

Un hombre que camina (A Man Walking)

2011-2014

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In Enrique Ramírez’s Un Hombre que Camina (A Man Walking), the sense of rhythm and timing is overpowered by the colossal sense of timelessness of this peculiar place. Shot in Uyuni, Bolivia, the film depicts the world’s largest salt flat, a site that sits in a mountainous region at over twelve thousand feet above sea level. Ramírez’s work is deeply invested in the loss of regional identity, and the anachronistic dress of his “modern-day shaman” in the film is meant to reconcile the historical and cultural gaps between tribal traditions of a specific time and place and the all-too-prevalent homogeneity brought on by advanced capitalism. His festive yet ominous ceremonial mask, by extension, functions as a relic of colonial resistance: made by native coal miners to ward off Spanish invaders, the mask signals a need both past and present to preserve rituals passed down through future generations and across cultural genealogies.

Enrique Ramirez’s highly politicized practice engages both personal recollections and gathered stories, questions notions of exile, displacement, loss of memory, and a changing sense of place. Growing up in Santiago, Chile, his father was a sail-maker and Ramirez’s process often returns to the sea to bolster his investigations of movement, discovery, and geo-politics. The artist describes art and filmmaking as methods to communicate the ways society moves in cycles, sometimes backward and sometimes forward, especially regarding issues of immigration, border politics, and national identity. His seductive films and installations are sites of contemplation and imagination in their depiction of boundless space and expansive landscapes.

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Enrique Ramirez Un hombre que camina (A Man Walking)

Enrique Ramirez

Un hombre que camina (A Man Walking)