Qais Assali and Jose Luis Benavides
Monument to Santa Anna's Leg: Nice Legs
Video, color, stereo
10 minutes 35 seconds
2019
In this video and installation work, Latinx artist Jose Luis Benavides and Palestinian artist Qais Assali search for Santa Anna's missing leg. The Mexican general Santa Anna not only lost his wooden leg to U.S. forces during the American invasion and occupation of Mexico in the Mexico-American War, but Santa Anna also lost half of Mexico's territories to the U.S. at the end of that war in 1848. Sharing in the trauma of Mexico's stolen lands in 1848 and the 1948 Nakba in Palestine, we film their our journey to Springfield, IL (USA) where a military museum keeps guard of Santa Anna's wooden leg in its odd fortress as a macabre trophy of U.S. global imperialism.
Qais Assali is an interdisciplinary artist/designer born in Palestine in 1987 and raised in the UAE before returning to Palestine in 2000. Assali taught in Visual Communication at Al-Ummah University College, Jerusalem, Michigan State University, MI, and Vanderbilt University, TN. Recently, Assali joined the School of the Museum of Fine Arts' faculty at Tufts University, Boston, MA. Assali was a 2019-21 Core Fellow at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX. Assali’s work has been exhibited at Hauser & Wirth, NY; Middle East Institute, DC; Station Museum of Contemporary Art, TX; Stamps Gallery, University of Michigan, MI; Toronto Queer Film Festival 2021, Canada; SculptureCenter, NY; Chicago Cultural Center, IL, Glassell School of Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX; Temporary Art Center (TAC), Netherlands; and Qalandiya International, Palestine. Assali is the recipient of Art Matters Foundation grant; Chicago Artists Coalition Spark Grant; Houston Arts Alliance Digital Grant; Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts - Idea Fund; SAIC New Artists’ Society Award; and Palest’In & Out Festival - Plastic Art Prize. Assali holds four degrees in visual arts from Palestine and the U.S, a BFA in Graphic Design from An-Najah National University 2009, and a BA in Contemporary Visual Art from the International Academy of Art Palestine 2017. Assali simultaneously completed an MFA from Bard College, NY 2019, and an MA in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL 2018. For more info, visit qaisassali.com.
Jose Luis Benavides is a Latinx and queer photographer, moving image maker, and assistant professor of digital media. Working primarily with a range of personal archives, his work explores issues relating to gender, sexuality, culture, and migration. His work has screened at Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, Onion City Experimental Film Festival, and Revolutions Per Minute Festival. His work has been screened globally, in Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Turkey, and the U.S. He was recently awarded a Best of Fest’ Spotlight Film at the 55th Humboldt International Film Festival. He was also commissioned to make video works by the Chicago Film Archives, Defy Film Festival, and Envisioning Justice: An Exhibition at The Sullivan Galleries. He recently held solo exhibitions at the International Museum of Surgical Science, Chicago Art Department, and the Engine for Art, Democracy, and Justice. And he has exhibited at the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, Screen Share Video Gallery, and Terremoto - La Postal. As an experimental documentarian and video art programmer, he opens conversations, space, and time for diverse perspectives from feminist, queer, trans, and Latinx moving image makers for the virtual archive Sin Cinta Previa. For his artistic, curatorial, and scholarly work he has received grants from the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Ignite Fund/3Arts, Hyde Park Arts Center’s Artists Run Chicago Fund & Terra Foundation - Art Design Chicago, Propeller Fund, a POWER Project, the Illinois Humanities, and the Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Consortium. For more info, visit joseluisbenavides.com.
Monument to Santa Anna's Leg was commissioned in 2018 for The Lasting Effect, Qalandiya International, “Solidarity”, Ramallah, Palestine. It took part of 'On Collaboration & Solidarity' (Jun 25 - 26, 2020), a conversation with lifelong human rights South African Activist Albie Sachs and Independent Curator Reem Fadda, hosted by Dar Jacir for Art and Research, Bethlehem.