The co-celebrated mass was scheduled for 10 am. In any case, to be in Morazán in the last two years as part of the School of Art and Open Studio of Perquin has reaffirmed the collective effort as possible, advisable and quite uncomplicated, actually.ĭecember 9, 2006, 25th Anniversary of the massacre at El Mozote In days not so festive, it feels like an overwhelming task to do everything alone. In the good days, it feels as a “challenge”. Rather, I felt over the years as a “salmon” ( sort to speak) always against the troubled waters of a river trying to overcome obstacles. But, seldom I could produce the evidence of being accompanied by so many people. In my life outside Perquin, I had held to the same belief system. Art is one aspect, one thread of a large tapestry of social, economic, political and cultural structure. Looking at many dear friends in that church (people who have become dear friends over the last two years) I said that all that was accomplished in art had happened because we all worked at it.Įverything that is worth living for, in fact, is only possible through community and collaborative action. Facing the people from the altar, I firstly thanked Rogelio for having, always, given such a protagonic role to art in our community. He identified art as the praxis to resist injustice and the commitment to retaliate brutality with beauty and hope.Īfter the sermon, Rogelio invited me to speak to the audience of the church. He spoke about the murals at El Mozote as a collective act of remembrance. On December 10, the following day to the 25th anniversary of the massacre at El Mozote, Rogelio spoke about the role of art in the difficult journey of memory. These days Rogelio is the “párroco”/ sort of spiritual leader of Perquin and the North of Morazán and someone capable to sort out in his sermons local and international politics, sociology, economy, power and mysticism. Rogelio Ponseele is a legend in El Salvador, a Belgium priest who accompanied the FMLN during the 12 years of war. I frequently do that, not so much for religious fervor as for the fact that Rogelio performs mass and I am interested in what he says. I attended mass the Sunday before I left Perquin. It has been a wonderful gift against solitude. The School of Art and Open Studio of Perquin, edifices its presence on a vast net of people and gazing eyes wanting and demanding that the world would become a better place for every one. All what I do, happens in part, because I am a link in a much longer and stronger chain of efforts of which, mine, is as important as the effort of everyone else’s. If I were to identify what has been the most important aspect of my last two years in Perquin, I would say that is the constant awareness that I am part of a large group of people working together. Hopefully, through this trust and determination, we may contribute even if in a small and humble way to sustain, to support, to allow the world not to fall.
It has been a large net of gazing and trusting eyes, willing to create a new liaison through the creation of collaborative art projects. This is, for me, the essence of Perquin in the last two years and certainly in the last few months. He says: “ A net of gazing eyes, keeps the world united, it does not allow it to fall”. As always, at a point like this, I wish I were a poet! Not being one, I convoke Roberto Juarroz, an Argentina poet, unfairly unknown outside Argentina, but revered here for his innovative metric and his austere poetics. The multiplicity of events and the overwhelming episodes of the last few intense months make me feel that I do not know where or how to start. Ten days in Buenos Aires find me still with difficulties on how to write this report, this “conversation”. Only ten days passed since I left El Salvador, the beloved community of Perquin, where the air turns purple the contours of the mountains and the sky, the storms and the millions of stars at night, leaves me speechless and never fails to move me. As last year, I find myself writing the last report about Perquin, from this overcrowded, fantastic, multilayered city of Buenos Aires where I came to spend the holidays with family and friends. It is Christmas day in this December of 2006.