Hermosa Intervención is a collective of Afro-Uruguayan women founded in 2020 that came together to reconstruct and perform the history of Afro-Latinas through the project, El Museo Afroviviente. By investigating and restaging the historiography of women of African descent who have been vital to the anti-racist cause and in advocating for the rights of Afro-descendant, Indigenous, migrant, and LGBTQ+ populations in Abya Yala, Hermosa Intervención disseminates stories of the African diaspora otherwise neglected by neo-colonial narratives and rendered invisible by educational systems. As a practice based on the power of storytelling and corporeality, their interventions are ignited through performance, spoken word, body paint, sound, and installation. They carry out interventions in several institutions across Montevideo in central and peripheral neighbourhoods and tour Uruguay to reach out to various communities. In the collective, hermosa (beautiful) refers to the pride of their own bodies and stories, since the life experience of each member is interwoven into the stories they bring to life. Thus, Hermosa Intervención celebrates ‘the body as a transmitter of Black histories’. Distancing themselves from the Eurocentric, object-oriented museum, they invite the public to a living experience and to carry their stories with us long after.

Commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), co-produced by Hermosa Intervención and HKW, 2023.

Work in the exhibition: El Museo Afroviviente (2023), documentary video, 20' Courtesy of Hermosa Intervención