In this text, Nelbia Romero (b. 1938) explains her exhibition project Bye, Bye, Yaugurú (1995), curated by Alicia Haber (b. 1946) for the venue run by the Intendencia de Montevideo, Subte Municipal [see in the ICAA digital archive Alicia Haber’s “Nelbia Romero: ritos de despedida y bienvenida” (doc. no. 1246603)]. The text contains a reflection on the period—an imprecise block of time that encompasses the final years of the military dictatorship and the first years after the restoration of democracy in the country, a period marked by the historic collapse caused by state terrorism and the military dictatorship in power from 1973 to 1985. That political event made way for social awareness and inclusion of territories that expanded the idea of a “national identity” beyond the “European” commonplace. Romero addresses and interrogates the supposed cultural pillars of “national identity,” creating ties to new ideologies and subjectivities. Romero’s artistic background was diverse: she had studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, participated in the Club de Grabado de Montevideo (CGM), taught children, and engaged in archeological, anthropological, and cultural studies of the pre-Hispanic era. That background led to exhibition projects such as this one, Bye, Bye, Yaugurú, and Más allá de las palabras [see Haber, “Al encuentro de las culturas subyacentes” (doc. no. 1238901) and Romero, “Más allá de las palabras” (doc. no. 1238885)]. The artist’s philosophy in general, and this one in particular, questioned historically hegemonic discourse addressing the idea of “nation” and the “European” elements in the Uruguayan cultural imaginary, attempting to recover underlying cultural discourses that had been silenced. In the artist’s view, those elements submerged in the national geography, archeology, and language, live on and reappear as signals of identity despite official mechanisms of power.
