1980: Battle Around the Body of the Great Vejiganta: Tocones

The Fiestas de Santiago Apóstol, or festivities in honor of St. James, in Loíza have been, to a large extent, the prism through which Daniel Lind Ramos interprets and represents history. Its colors and characters are present in his pictorial and sculptural work, always with great reverence for its symbology and syncretism. Taking the specificity of Loíza as a starting point, he links up to the creative universe of the African diaspora at a global level. The title of this drawing refers to the murder of Adolfina Villanueva on February 6, 1980, at the hands of the Puerto Rico Police during the eviction of her house and her ancestral land in the Tocones sector of Loíza. The land legally belonged to someone else and, in their eagerness to sell it, the police, a SWAT team, the judge and the landowner gathered to carry out an eviction that killed the mother of six, wounded her husband, and flattened her house. In this representation, Adolfina has the support of her community that defends her from the Santiago-faced anthropomorphized machines. This piece synthesizes a painful and unfair moment in the history of Puerto Rico and serves as call for decent housing and an anti-racist future.