Bolivian-born Argentinian activist and artist Ángela Camacho@HeardinLondon (EL PAÍS)
Ángela Camacho (Buenos Aires, 45 years old) has had a thousand lives since she emigrated to London two decades ago, or as she calls this city, "the belly of the beast", but she has always visualized one goal: to become a "good ancestor". Activist and artist, she advises and speaks at some of the most influential British cultural institutions such as the Southbank Centre, Barbican and Tate Modern, and defines herself as a witch, indigenous descendant, creative, "ancestor on the way" and community organiser. She also works as a domestic worker and caregiver of two children, from Monday to Friday and from eight to five, an activity that she does not want to abandon despite her increasingly frequent cultural collaborations because it provides her, she says, with economic freedom. But in none of these areas does she accept losing her identity or her millenary knowledge: that of her indigenous grandmothers, two Bolivian women from La Paz who, after migrating to Buenos Aires, continued to speak Quechua and Aymara, were guided by the agricultural calendar and were dressed as cholas.
"Maintaining the legacy is a life's work," he explains in an interview with EL PAÍS. "There's no perfect way to be indigenous, it's something that has taken me years to learn," she reflects. "We are displaced, but we follow the practices of our ancestors... I'm an extension of my territory, and I'm not going to let them fragment me." With her demands, this woman of close contact is becoming a reference for the indigenous and Latin American migrant community in London. "I was told I was the face of ecofeminism, and I had to Google it," she laughs cheekily.
Some of his latest work as an artist has recently been exhibited in the exhibition Against Apartheid, in Plymouth, southern England, an exhibition about how climate change will make life miserable for a part of the world's population. Camacho's work is an archive made up of collages of Native American women that she has created with her mobile phone to publicize their lives and that she has been publishing as an online encyclopedia on her Instagram account, @thebonitachola, with more than 30,000 followers. Its objective is to make the indigenous population visible in order to "break down the information fences" that exist over them. "We are less than 5% of the world's population and defend 80% of the world's biodiversity," he says.
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She herself claims to belong to the indigenous population, albeit from the grey asphalt of the diaspora, where she did not always have it easy. She arrived at the age of 23, as a student, in the United Kingdom, where she spent 10 years undocumented, mainly because she could not afford the cost of a temporary visa that she had to renew every two years and which in her case amounted to about 3,000 euros. It's not uncommon. A single mother, she remembers selling cakes from a cart in the Elephant and Castle shopping centre, painting faces, as a cleaner and, she tells it without taboos, also as a prostitute. It was precisely at that stage that he wove a net, got his visa and came out ahead. "The community saved me. The whores saved me, and I'm proud to say that. My work is born from the roots of the community, grows and is nourished from that space. I always come back to that point," he says.
There is no perfect way to be indigenous
Now he seeks not to leave anyone out. She does this with intergenerational embroidery workshops so that the youngest – many orphans of role models – can learn about their roots. Also with neighbourhood networks in social centres, such as the one in the multicultural neighbourhood of Brixton, where issues affecting the Latin American community are discussed, from labour exploitation to how to apply for funds to organise cultural events.
In the museums and cultural institutions with which he collaborates, his audience is different. "For a long time I refused to participate in these spaces, which are not made for—but about—bodies like mine," she recalls. But now he believes they are essential to get out of Eurocentrism and start uncomfortable conversations. For example, on feminism, a movement that, she argues, was also not created for black bodies. Or about the colonial legacy in homophobia. "Historically, we had five or six genres, double spirit... Gender was conceived in a more spiritual way. When the settlers arrive, they bring homophobia with them," explains Camacho, referring to research that concludes that some indigenous peoples had more than two genders.
For Camacho, the key to healing from the damage of colonialism is to practice a "long memory." On social media, he sends out a reminder every October 31: "My culture is not your costume." "For those thinking of dressing up as Pocahontas, Hawaiian, chieftain... I would ask them to light a candle and reflect on those who are gone, for those who are not here and for all that they had to go through before us." And it ends with an invitation: "Practice to be a better ancestor along the way."
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