PALOMO

‘Palomo’, once ridden by liberator Simón Bolívar, runs across the Venezuelan flag. Cut open from neck to back, transforming the emblem of freedom into a hollow vessel for oil.  
The body holds crude oil, a material that shaped Venezuela’s economy while fuelling corruption, political instability, and displacement.

Beneath the Orinoco Belt sleeps the world’s largest oil reserve, 303 Billion Barrels, 17% of Earths supply. This abundance elicited ‘The Resource Curse’.

The horse flees the burning Budare, an abstracted Venezuelan cooking plate, echoing a nation escaping dictatorship, gutted of its people, its soul.

Born far from family, culture, belonging. Yet it runs in my blood beyond distance, a weight shared by many Venezuelans, a country far from itself.