AURAS OF WAR: PUBLIC INTERVENTIONS IN THE NICARAGUAN REVOLUTIONARY PUBLIC SPACE. 1996-2006.

This picture is the first encounter as a photographer with the image of Sandino in 1996. The place was an hold house near the market in Granada, Nicaragua. The house is surrounded by prostittution and small drug markets. For me the graffity was perfect, because Sandino did not have a face. This image would become the icon of my work: I used it as a photograph at first (1996-2003), then as a poster (2004 in the 25th aniversary of the Sandinista Revolution), and then as the presentation of THE THING: The Wall (2006).

Metal plate (2004) of the reproduction process for the 25th aniversary posters. This was the image on one side of the poster, the other side was the series of portraits that I made on the year 2000 on the 19th of july.

The poster got opposite opinions from the people who was at the celebration, some hated and some love it. The problem was about some texts on the posters as: “portraits made on the ex-plaza of the Revolution” and “25th aniversary edition. Auras of War.” People from the Sandinista’s Party surrounded my car and wanted to destroy the posters before we can distributte them among the people who where at the Cathedral and in the Juan Pablo II Plaza.

Then I was invited to the II Prague Biennale on 2005 and I took Sandino to the streets of Prague. I left the show with the pictures of the places where the poster was left, and this text on the wall of the biennale: “Checoslovaquia helped the nicaraguan revolution but they forgot to tell us how to manage the failure”.

In 2006 I needed to PRESENT what I was REPRESENTING, so I decided to cut the Wall of the house of Granada. I had ten years of not knowing exactly where I took that picture of the smashed Sandino. I went looking for it and I found that the house was from my grandmother, and that my father lived there when he was waiting to get older enough to go to school. So, too much coincidences made me take the final decision, I called two architects friend of mine, Oscar Rivas and Jennifer Sevilla, and they came with an engineer, Mario Sevilla. They said it was possible to cut the wall were Sandino was.

For the engineering work, that took 3-4 months, I hired two disable war veterans to stay with Sandino, day and night. So I ended working with great people, Don Rigoberto López Mejía, Adolfo Palma and David Davila. They were fighting on the war of the eighties, in opposite armys (La Contra vs the Sandinista Army). This meeting was the performance called “Desmovilizado” that I had enjoyed most.

The project went to the National Palace of Culture in Managua, the same place were the Legislative Parlament took place on the Somoza Dictatoship era. We took The Wall there and all the photographic and video work that I had been doing in the last 10 years for Auras of War. The director of the Nicaraguan Cultural Institute closed the show the very day of the opening because he said it was political propaganda.

On november 2006 we went to the V Central American Biennal with The Wall (1rst prize). We travelled by ground with the piece and with the war veterans of Desmovilizados. The trip was made on the IFA truck called “El Gringo” made on the extinguish Democratic Republic of Germany (RDA). This kind of trucks were sended from the Socialist world wing to Nicaragua as part of the solidarity of those cold war days. All soldiers went to war on this IFA trucks.

Now I’m still working with the war veterans, and we are planning a couple of things together: their work facilities and fares, or a flat tire workshop.

Ernesto Salmerón / December 2006.

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