Elena Tejada-Herrera

Las Bambas

Las Bambas by Elena Tejada-Herrera takes the name of a copper mine in the Andean department of Apurímac, Peru. The operations of this mining project were resisted by the  local peasant communities, whose protests forced it to paralyze its operations. As of 2023, this is the most serious unresolved social conflict in the country. 

Las Bambas is the result of the digital combination of two drone videos. One shows two mothers with their daughters dressed in shiny sequined outfits that tenderly caress each other; the other shows aerial images of a forest, a stream, a waterfall, and vegetation burning. While various bodily gestures of care and affection appear throughout the video, a girl’s voice tells the story of the mine and its effects, such as the dynamics of exploitation, forced labor, displacement, and the militarization of the area. The artist doesn’t hide the digital edition, showing blurred edges and saturating the colors to create a poisoning atmosphere. The shiny dresses slowly reveal themselves as a representation of mercury, cadmium, arsenic, and other metals on the skin of mother and daughter that we can now see are also cleaning each other’s bodies.