La Llorona

La Llorona is a scenic-audiovisual piece based on the myth of La Llorona, created in colonial times in New Spain, today Mexico, as a racist mechanism of violence against Indian and/or racialised women.

It shows the institutional, patriarchal and colonial violence exercised through racism, misogyny and maternophobia against racialised, poor mothers, infants and children, such as the Spanish State's removal of parental authority, which entailed children being confined to juvenile centres (former orphanages of the Franco dictatorship), adopted by European families and trafficked as minors.

A Mexican Indian woman (La Malinche, the wife of Hernán Cortés) is accused of murdering her children because of her Spanish husband's abandonment. She is painted as a murderer driven out of spite, but also because she is not European, since Cortés, after separating from her, marries a Spaniard. Colonial Mexican society turned her into la Llorona, which has served as a horror story to frighten children, dehumanising her and turning her into a monster.

Activity curated by Linda Porn and Frida Trejo

La Llorona Reina Sofía


Linda Porn

Linda Porn. Mexico. She is an actress and visual artist, sex worker and single mother graduated from the Laboratorio del Teatro Campesino e Indígena de México. Her work has been exhibited in several museums such as MoMA, MACBA and CCCB and in different sex worker festivals, such as the San Francisco Bay Area Sex Worker Film and Arts Festival. Her play La Llorona, performed with Frida Trejo, toured Spain and Italy between 2022 and 2023, produced by the Cátedra Extraordinaria Rosario Castellanos de Literatura y Géneros of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 2021 and presented at the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía.

www.lindaporn.tumblr.com


Frida Trejo

Frida Trejo (Spain-Mexico, 2005). Artist and actress of the company Los Menos Teatro, appearing in the play Oluz, presented in 2012. In 2021, she gave a talk at the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome on custody removals. In 2021, together with Linda Porn, she created the theatrical and performative work La Llorona. Co-creator of Odiar a la madre, she is a currently scriptwriter and assistant photographer for the documentary film about the struggle of sex workers in Spain, directed by Anneke Necro and Linda Porn.