Rene Gómez
9 minutes and 29 seconds | May 25, 2020
In 2020, COVID-19 had such a powerful takeover all over the world. During that time, I was in quarantine, like everyone else, when Marta from RILA gave me these blank wooden doors and said to create a piece that showed what I was thinking. At that time, I was only thinking of what happened on May 25, 2020, the day George Floyd was suffocated while he lay on the ground, with a police officer's knee on his neck.
After his death, protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread across the United States and globally. As he was dying, he said, "I can't breathe," which was used as a rallying cry during protests that took place the rest of the summer. To erase that image from my mind, I began to reflect on the other civil rights leaders and events in history that led us to this point. I connected the past to the present, and hope for a better future.
Las Vidas Negras Importan. I also wanted to acknowledge that Black Lives Matter, not only for the African-American community, but for Afro-Latinos, which is part of my own cultural heritage.
After his death, protests against police brutality, especially towards black people, quickly spread across the United States and globally. As he was dying, he said, "I can't breathe," which was used as a rallying cry during protests that took place the rest of the summer. To erase that image from my mind, I began to reflect on the other civil rights leaders and events in history that led us to this point. I connected the past to the present, and hope for a better future.
Las Vidas Negras Importan. I also wanted to acknowledge that Black Lives Matter, not only for the African-American community, but for Afro-Latinos, which is part of my own cultural heritage.
