Ana Mendieta

Artist, Ana Mendieta, narrates as corresponding images of her work in both still and moving images highlight her themes and meanings behind her work.

This beautiful film is a portrait of the life and work of Cuban-born American artist Ana Mendieta. Mendieta used her own body, the raw materials of nature, and Afro-Cuban religion to express her feminist political consciousness and poetic vision. Interview footage with Mendieta and her own filmed records of her earthworks and performances are incorporated to render a vivid testament to her energy and extraordinary talent after her tragic, untimely death in 1985.

Short film by Ana Mendieta.

A dead tree. A body. Ocean waves.

This film is a performance that the artist undertook at Old Man’s Creek, Sharon Center, Iowa City, Iowa. The performance was recorded on Super-8 film and 35mm slides. The film shows Mendieta standing naked on the sandy bank on one side of the creek, in front of flowing water and a steep mud bank on the other side. After looking directly at the camera, she raises a flask to shoulder level and begins pouring blood down her chest, legs and stomach. She then reaches over her shoulders to include her back, and covers her arms before casting the empty vessel aside. Dropping to the ground, she plunges face-first into a heap of white feathers where she slowly rolls back and forth, adhering the feathers to the sticky blood on her skin. Finally, she rises slowly to stand with her arms held away from her body but bent at the elbow as though she is imagining being a bird with wings. She holds this position for a few seconds before the film ends.

Ana Mendieta, 1974

A single-channel video (transferred from Super-8 film), color, silent, where we watch the artist from behind as she traces a rough outline of her body in blood against a white wall.

A self-portrait, Mirage exposes Mendieta's naked body in nature reflected in a mirror. She holds a gourd and stabs it open to let its seeds fly away.

Mendieta, Ana: Burial Pyramide, Yagul, Mexico.

United States 1974, Super 8 transferred to digital, colour, silent, 3 min