Since 1869 the site has served as a mass grave for more than one million people, many of whom died in poverty or whose bodies were not claimed after death. Filmed on and around the island, the footage includes picturesque views of the land and surrounding sea as Coco Fusco rows a boat, gently tossing flowers into the water. The scenes are accompanied by a somber text written by the artist and performed by poet Pamela Sneed.
For more than thirty years, Fusco has produced critical writing, performances, site-specific installations, and videos that examine multicultural and postcolonial discourses, feminist theory, and social justice, as well as the power dynamics of war and incarceration. The commemorative gesture in Your Eyes Will Be an Empty Word is filled with beauty and insurmountable loss.
