The Occupied Forest: Colonial Violence and Indigenous Resistance in Film

In Afterall Journal 49, Macarena Gómez-Barris analyzes the influence of colonial and capitalist dynamics on forests through the lens of two films. The first, Mencer: Ni Pewma (2011) by Francisco Huichaqueo, portrays the Mapuche people's resistance against military encroachment and the conversion of native Pehuén forests into radiata pine and eucalyptus plantations in Wallmapu. It underscores the historical dispossession initiated by Spanish militias in the sixteenth century and the harmful consequences of 1990s legislation that privatized Indigenous lands. The second work, Forest Law (2014) by Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares, investigates forest occupation via measurement tools, illustrating the repercussions of oil extraction on Eastern Amazonian ecosystems. Gómez-Barris encountered Forest Law for the first time in 2017 on her laptop and subsequently at a private event at the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz. Her essay posits that the colonial/modern forest is a heavily utilized area rife with exploitation, rather than an untouched wilderness.