Private Story
Black Baby Jesus was born in February
Summary
An Afro-Colombian community fight to maintain their roots and cultural identity through a tradition of more than 170 years.
So for Christmas, they transformed the celebration, which takes place 45 days after the traditional date of the birth of Jesus, the time it took Virgin Mary to rest after she gave birth. Quinamayó celebrates Christmas in mid-February as a form of African descendants’ cultural resistance. It is a festivity that still persists today in which the children dress up as biblical characters, the matronas -women leaders- wear their traditional dresses and people dance the juga, an autochthonous rhythm of Quinamayó.
How did the project come about? Quinamayó's festivities are very well know among the local media in Valle del Cauca department, where I live, but at the time I took the first photos in 2019 I made the same mistake as the others: to document only the parties. That's why my main goal in this ongoing project is focusing in how that tradition influences the way Quinamayó conceives spirituality in everyday life.
I believe this story is important at this time, because Colombia is a racist country. We grew up under the idea of "improving the race", as if Afros were a population that had to be fixed. And today, racism manifests in discriminatory remarks in the street or on social media. The inhabitants of Quinamayó fight against that by taking pride in their roots, as well as by manifesting a syncretism that invites us to reflect on our racial and cultural diversity in Colombia.
If you give me the opportunity to win the Visura Project Grant, I will have the possibility to return to Quinamayó for the month of May, when the community celebrates the Afro-Colombian Day (date yet to be defined by the organizers). In addition, I will make periodic visits to deepen into how Quinamayó maintains and celebrates its Afro-descendant roots in its daily life: profiles of older adults as individuals who preserve the historical memory of the town, the leadership of some young people to pass on their traditions in the new generations and the economic activities that are also part of Quinamayó's identity, such as gold panning and agriculture. This is because I do not want to limit the project to the February celebrations, but to have a holistic view of the Afro-Colombian identity in Quinamayó.
