This program explores the relationship between the West African diaspora and the continent, as depicted in Saidiya Hartman’s book ‘Lose Your Mother’. The book delves into this connection, serving as both a vigil and a memorial to this partially diluted bond, still deeply felt and lived. Hartman traces the path of captives from the interior to the Atlantic coast, vividly portraying the effects of slavery on three centuries of African and Afro-American history. According to Hartman, the enslaved person is a stranger, torn from family, home, and land: “Losing your mother means being separated from your relatives, forgetting your past, inhabiting the world as an outsider.”

During this program, we pay homage to the umbilical cord and to the deity Yemoja. Yemoja is revered as the mother of all Orishas (gods and goddesses) in places like Nigeria, Brazil, and Cuba, closely associated with rivers and oceans. Yemoja is considered the protector of women, children, and people who have lost connection with their ancestors.

After an introduction to these themes by writer and musician Kalib Batta, Lucila Novoa will read excerpts from her performance ‘It took me a while to change my name’, questioning what it means to be human when the connection to cultural memory and history of origin is severely disrupted or even severed. She seeks a language that expresses the specific experience of the adopted person of color, aiming to reclaim the ‘speculative’ narrative and the adoption experience. Performer and priestess Ventura Profana will guide us in a collective ritual as a form of remembrance.

Expect a diverse program exploring forced labor and oblivion, spiritual traditions and adoption rights, and laws as a form of conjuration.