The Juicers, 2015

The Juicers is a major video work by Laura Eldret exploring ideas of transformation, making, sociability, (mis)translation, performance, fantasy, and the limits of ethnography. Eldret’s video is based on time spent working in a Zapotec community in Mexico, where she filmed daily life and interviewed local people to find out what lies beneath these recorded observations. In The Juicers, these discussions play across the two screens in a dialogue that goes in and out of synchronization, creating a space for the viewer to construct their own connections and narratives. The Juicers engages with the proliferation of colours in the town as an imaginary framework – the fruit and vegetable juices (red, green, yellow, etc) sold in the local market, and the organic and artificial dyes used in weaving (cochinilla, indigo, local yellow flowers). Eldret’s work suggests that these colours are consumed, transformed and presented in the town as an integral part of the physical actions and bodies of the community.

With special thanks to the people of Teotitlán del Valle and in particular to the individuals who feature in The Juicers

Editing support kindly provided by Will Smith

Photos by Benjamin Cosmo Westoby