Regina José Galindo (Guatemala City, 1974) is an artist and poet who uses her own body to demonstrate the violence imposed by power structures in contemporary societies. Born during the civil war in Guatemala (1954–96), a conflict that decimated and caused the disappearance of thousands of Guatemalans, the artist’s production is marked by political and ethical concerns derived from this historical context. A pioneer of performance art in Latin America, her oeuvre strains the physical limits of her body and the audience to denounce human rights abuses and gender inequalities. 
In the video Deportada (Todo lo que perdí) [Deported (Everything I Have Lost)] (2024), Galindo stands motionless amid the personal belongings of Cristina Cazales Pacheco, a Mexican deported from New York to her country. Dressed in multiple layers of Pacheco’s clothes, the artist has these pieces gradually removed from her body by the audience, in a procedure that highlights the erasure of her existence by a society that normalizes the consequences of forced displacement, or even participates in this physical and symbolic dispossession. On a second channel, Pacheco tells her story and the anguish caused by the imposition of a border between herself, her family, and her will. Galindo had already addressed Latin American immigration to the United States; in this recent work, she highlights the persistence and relevance of the violence that marks the issue, reinforcing the importance of ensuring a face, a voice, and a presence for its victims. 

Video Room: Regina José Galindo is curated by Bruna Fernanda, Curatorial Assistant, MASP. 

The exhibition is part of the year devoted to the Latin American Histories, which also includes solo shows by Carolina Caycedo, Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Colectivo Acciones de Arte, Damián Ortega, Jesús Soto, La Chola Poblete, Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla, Pablo Delano, Rosa Elena Curruchich, Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, Santiago Yahuarcani, and Sol Calero, in addition to the collective show Latin American Histories, as well as exhibitions in the Video Room by Clara Ianni, Claudia Martínez Garay, Edgar Calel, and Oscar Muñoz.