Enrique Ramirez
Un hombre que camina (A Man Walking)

In Un Hombre que Camina (A Man Walking) (2011-2014), the sense of rhythm and timing is overpowered by the colossal sense of timelessness of this peculiar place. Shot in Uyuni, Bolivia, the film depcits world’s largest salt flat, a site that sits in a mountainous region at over twelve thousand feet above sea level. Ramirez’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.