Son[i]a #459
Santiago Mostyn
In the work of Santiago Mostyn (San Francisco, 1981) history is never fixed. Shaped by displacement and the lingering afterlives of colonialism, he has developed a practice that moves across film, installation, performance and text, tracing fragile connections between bodies, territories and power. His films unfold through associative montage: archival fragments, gestures, sound and found images converge into open-ended narratives where intimacy and political violence coexist. Images drift between documentary and dream, between political memory and personal mythology.
In this conversation, we move through the conceptual meaning of the jungle and the Caribbean as both real and symbolic territories; through autobiography suspended between the micro and the macrocosmic; through the island of Grenada, Black political struggles, early childhood trauma and recurring dreams. We also discuss the close relationship between music and politics through the history of Radio Free Grenada, the multi-directional movements of diaspora, and the long 1970s in the Caribbean – from student movements to radical forms of Black political engagement. At the intersection between language and embodiment, between analytical understanding and sensory experience, Mostyn proposes other ways of thinking history and identity. Words define, images recombine. The future appears behind us while the past continues to arrive from ahead.
Sound sources:
klankbeeld, “waves sea dike NL 353PM 230519_0608”
Jojo1298, “Tayrona, Colombia Night 7- lots of Frogs very close.wav”
Nina de Vroome, “mwere morning”
absent1010, “Frog Forest”
nyoz, “Amb tropical – Insect, waterfalls, waves Anse Des Cascades, Reunion Island”
Rbn974, “Ocean Waves Reunion Island“
RTB45, “Tangkoko Nature Reserve – Sulawesi, Indonesia”
digifishmusic, ”Eastern Whipbird.wav”
Felix Blume, “Motmot bird inside a cenote in Yucatan”
Felix Blume, “Chachalacas birds screaming at dawn in the forest, in the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve”
Felix Blume, “Dolphin screaming underwater in Caribbean Sea (Mexico)”
keng-wai-chane-chick-te,”BEACH_REUNION_ISLAND_BACKGROUND.wav”
keng-wai-chane-chick-te, “AMB_RAIN_FROM_INDOOR_260430_kengwai_cct”
keng-wai-chane-chick-te, “AMB_HOME_LIVING_ROOM_01_260506_kengwai_cct”
keng-wai-chane-chick-te, “AMB_WATER_WAVES_260430_kengwai_cct”
Conversation: Louise Jonard and Anna Ramos. Script: Ricardo Cárdenas. Sound production: Albert Tarrats. Voice over: Hiuwai Chu. Sounds: RWM sound library.
ATTRIBUTION/NON-COMMERCIAL/SHARE-ALIKE 4.0 INTERNATIONAL (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
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