VIDEO ART

The Legacy of Christopher Columbus, A Short Account in Technicolor by LILI BERNARD, 2011

Synopsis: A brief dramatization of Bartolomé de Las Casas' testimonial account of the Spanish Conquest of the New World. This was an exercise for me and my six children in remembering the slaughter which our indigenous Caribbean ancestors endured. My father's grandmother, Clemencia Figueroa, was half Siboney (native tribe of Eastern Cuba) and half Black. Clemencia died a victim of Cuba's War of Independence from Spain.

The work is an exercise in memory for the lead actress, Dolann Adams, who is more than half Native American, Choctaw and Blackfoot on her dad's side and Cherokee and Apache on her mom's side. This work commemorates the early presence of enslaved Africans on the island of Cuba, and their mixing with indigenous people, upon their escape. Christopher Columbus initiated the importation of enslaved Africans on to the island of Cuba in 1512. Therefore, some of the indigenous people slaughtered in the genocide were also part African. The video is codified with imagery of Afro-Caribbean religion and folklore, as well as Amerindian historical references.

Category: Video-Art / Short Film / Docudrama Running Time: 6:50 mins

Written, directed, filmed and edited by LILI BERNARD

Afro-Cuban Batás Drums solo composed and performed by MELENA

CAST

DOLANN MARIE ADAMS

CASEY HUGHTS

ZION BERNARD FERGUSON

JOSHUA BERNARD FERGUSON

URIEL BERNARD FERGUSON

ELIAS BERNARD FERGUSON

ISAIAH BERNARD FERGUSON

RAFAEL BERNARD FERGUSON

RUBEN HORNILLO RODRIGUEZ

MICKEY BERNARD

LILI BERNARD

Ain't Funny by LILI BERNARD, 2014

Inspired by Frantz Fanon's book Black Skin, White Masks, Ain't Funny is an examination of Black consciousness as seen through a concerned mother's eyes and her son's burgeoning manhood. The Black male youth asserts his identity, while struggling with society's attempt to label, dilute and destroy it. He navigates through the layers of his identity, combating racism and stereotypes, with his strength, diligence, resilience, joy, frustration, anger and compassion.

The trope of this videoart piece is the syncretism, resulting from colonialism, of the African religion known as Palo in Cuba (referenced by the Congolese Nkisi-like nail fetish watermelon and whitened face) and Catholicism (referenced by the Passion of Christ and the tabernacle). The work is dedicated to two women who were lynched along with their children: Mary Turner (1918 Georgia) who's 8 month old fetus was gouged out of her belly and stomped to death by the mob as she hung upside down burnt and shot, and Laura Nelson (1919 Oklahoma) who was "swung" from a bridge alongside her 14 year old son L.D. Nelson, made famous by widely distributed souvenir postcards of their lynching.

CAST
RAFAEL BERNARD FERGUSON as The Son
LILI BERNARD as The Mother