‘Mujeres Custodias de Nuestro Habitat en Peligro’ mural by @mona.caron and @nantuayauma in Quito, Ecuador • Drone by @yasunidos, voice by Rosita Gualinga, video edit by Mona Caron

A Ropavejeros Moving Installation for the People´s Climate March

In Latin, "hostis" means both "hostile" and "guest." From this etymological ambivalence, the series "Hospitality Rituals" questions how we self-identify and redefine ourselves in unfamiliar territories. It also creates a personal reflection, stemming from the Ecuadorian diaspora, on culture and territory; it offers a critical perspective on our place in the world. The guest uncovers the silences and secrets of the host's intimacy, altering customs, disrupting the familiar order of things, and symbolically transforming into a hostile presence. The "hostile guest" highlights the behavioural pacts that condition conduct in the pursuit of acceptance and the reduction of the threat posed by differences – pacts that suppress difference and shape a self-censored and colonialist identity.

"The Hostile Guest" reinterprets Ecuador's participation in the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. This reinterpretation exposes the emergence of the Ecuadorian identity, partly defined by the 20th-century neocolonial expansion based on the extraction and exportation of natural and agricultural resources. The showcased raw materials, the exhibition setup, and the mural created by Ecuadorian artist Camilo Egas for the Fair reveal the strategic intentions of the United States – the host – to establish a system of imperialist, colonialist, and racist values. Simultaneously, it underscores the response of the Ecuadorian government in adhering to these parameters, seeking acceptance within the emerging global economic and geopolitical order in which the United States was becoming the leader of the Western world.

The artwork was exhibited in the spring of 2018 as part of the Accidentes Geograficos" show at the La Neomudéjar Museum in Madrid. It consists of a drawing on the floor made with South American coffee (purchased in Madrid). Coffee is one of the primary products featured in the Ecuadorian Pavilion. The drawing depicts a female indigenous figure, the central character of Camilo Egas's mural for the World's Fair, repeated four times in a circular composition aligned with the cardinal points. This is an interpretation of Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man," a drawing symbolizing the perfection of human proportion. In the center of the drawing, there is a fermented naranjilla fermented beverage, another fruit showcased in the Ecuadorian Pavilion of the World's Fair.

The artwork is activated during the exhibition's opening. Spectators become participants by stepping onto the artwork and forming a circle to toast with the drink. Following Ecuadorian tradition, a small amount of the drink is first spilled onto the ground, in this case directly affecting the drawing, as a homage to ancestors and absent individuals at the moment of the toast. This way, the artwork transforms into a record of interaction with the audience, becoming a platform that displays the traces generated while remembering and sharing.