On being inside the egg

This work borrows from the peruvian cleansing ritual known as pasada de huevo (egg passing) to create a moving-image healing experience. The video captures fragments of the bodies of performers Margarida Constantino and Henry Rodriguez, along with the hands of Liz Córdoba, as they experience/ perform the ritual. It is believed that the egg, upon contact with a person’s skin, has the ability to absorb negative affects stored in specific areas of their body. Once cracked into water, the shapes formed by the yolk are interpreted as revealing the person’s fortune. Motivated by the distress I felt witnessing the Peruvian protests of 2023 from a distance, I appropriate this ritual as an opportunity to dissect my position as a migrant forced to witness the injustices of my homeland from afar. In this way, I ground my displaced emotions in the bodies of the performers, who serve not only as stand-ins for my own experience but also as channels for the bodies of those from whom I am distanced.