Egungun: Ancestor Cant Find Me Cauleen Smith, 2017; loop

The word bone translates to yoruba as bones. In Egungun: Ancestor Cant Find Me, a shellcovered sea creature swims emerges form the Gulf of Mexico and wanders island jungles and shores. The shelled creature we see wandering in this film bears traits of both male (egungun) and female (gelede) ancestors. The chasm of time, distance and violence has severed its link to the living leaving it to look and listen for traces of our lives in an endless disorienting loop. The film references the ancestorreverent Egungun masking tradition of the Yoruba people who, indigenous to modernday Ghana, Benin, Togo, and Nigeria, were among the many African ethnic groups captured, enslaved and sold as chattel into the Transatlantic Slave trade.