Liz Madrano
Chiclayo
-
Peru
"I wouldn't reform it, I would make it collapse. Drawing on all the wisdom of the people, we would redistribute the wealth to the communities and peoples that sustain the World."
"I draw the red line against all forms of power that harm and destroy lives, against structural racism, against transphobia, against genocide of communities around the world, and against the illegitimate debts that prevent us from living in peace."
"I draw the red line against all forms of power that harm and destroy lives, against structural racism, against transphobia, against genocide of communities around the world, and against the illegitimate debts that prevent us from living in peace."
I am an activist because I understood that my racialised body, as a queer Black person from the margins, didn't fit into the societal idea of being human. When I saw, and grew tired of seeing my people die. When I realised it was necessary to find our voice and occupy spaces to build the world we dream of.
My focus is weaving and unweaving from memory, from joy, and from the drum. Fighting with joy, organising our rage against this system of death.
My biggest challenge is to continue loving in a world that condemns us to disorganisation and individualism. To build from joy, from the drum, from collective organisation. To honour rest, and to celebrate being alive within a system that imposes death.
I am inspired by the fire of my ancestors, the struggles that came before me and continue today: Palestine, Haiti, the Congo, and all of Abya Yala. I am inspired by the knowledge that we know how to raise our voices and continue fighting against a politics of death, that we are many, and that we will win.
Liz Medrano’s work stems from the body and territory.
Embodied as an Afro-descendant, queer, working-class person from the neighbourhood, grounded in the conviction that defending life means defending land, water, dignity, and pleasure.
From Moshikas Diversas and La Marikasa, a community house in Chiclayo, Liz promotes popular education, protest art, and political action alongside queer, feminist, and anti-racist movements.
Liz is part of the Red Cimarrona and the Los Afros community, creating music and poetry, and is the founder of the anti-racist batucada Bomba Marika, where rhythm and words become tools of resistance, escape, and celebration.
Through a decolonial, relational, and community-based perspective, Liz’s work strengthens organisation, sustains hope and radical imagination, and defends, with communities, the possibility of other worlds where life is at the centre and marronage is a path to freedom.
Meet The Photographer
Thom Pierce
Thom Pierce (born 1978 in Jersey, Channel Islands) is an award-winning British photographic artist, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
After graduating from the Brighton Institute of Modern Music in 2004, Pierce enjoyed a successful career in the music industry, touring the world with The Streets, Zero 7, Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers, Keane and George Michael.
Through his extensive travels Pierce rediscovered his love of the camera, eventually leaving music to pursue a career as a documentary and portrait photographer.
Over the past fifteen years he has built a substantial body of work that has been exhibited in major international galleries and festivals around the world.
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