Maya Watanabe

Pendulum

Three men with their backs to each other, dressed similarly in dark colors, stare straight at the camera. They individually deliver sacred lines from the Torah, New Testament, and Qur’an in their representative languages: Old Hebrew, Greek, and Old Arabic. As the camera slowly rotates around the trio, the men begin to perform traditional manifestations of each religious cult: Torah Cantillations, Gregorian Chants, and tilawat of Al-Qur’?n. The chanting is interspersed with subtitled translations that reveal similarities and connections between each text—names, locations, and subjects are repeated—complicating the relationship between them. It is unclear which voice is which, and what story they are trying to tell. 

Much like the amalgamation of voices and meanings in Maya Watanabe’s Pendulum, Peru’s religion is a blended mix of beliefs representative of the country’s history. The predominant religion in the country is Roman Catholic, something that the Spanish conquerors of Peru sought. Many churches were built during this period and convents were also built on ancient Inca sites. Yet indigenous religions and practices persisted and fused with Catholicism resulting in a hybrid of spirituality and religion.

Watanabe’s video, El Contorno (2011), which is part of the KADIST collection, operates on a similar level to Pendulum. Both consider language and identity which both become fluid and unfixed as the characters strive to dissolve their unique subjectivities.