Elyla

La Vía Láctea es una Herida

The Milky Way Is a Wound, 2026

Single-channel 4K video, sound, loop
14'40"

Moving between Nicaragua, Spain and Switzerland, La Vía Láctea es una Herida traces cattle, milk, landscape and memory through family archives, historical material and performance. Pastoral imagery, archival footage and news media intersect with embodied actions, tracing how colonial histories, migration and violence persist through images and inherited narratives.

Through montage and ritual, the work brings human and animal bodies, land, stone and water into shifting relations across different geographies and temporalities.

This screening presents the moving-image component of a video installation work.

Content note: This work contains archival imagery depicting death.

Credits

Directed, authored and edited by
Elyla

Camera — Elyla · Pilar Quinteros · Valeria Leiva | Sound Design & Soundtrack — Juberth Flores

Music — “Pesadilla” (1972), Cerebro · Written by José Antonio Corea and Guillermo de Almendarez Corea · Vocal sample from the original recording · Re-recording & arrangement: Juberth Flores · Guitar: Marcelo Espinoza · Piano: Jamil Zeledón | “Angelitos negros” (1946) · Lyrics adapted from “Píntame angelitos negros” (1940) by Andrés Eloy Blanco · Music: Manuel Álvarez Rentería (“Maciste”) · Performed by Ingrid Meynard

Spiral Petroglyph Sites — Piedras Pintadas, Villa Sandino, Chontales, Nicaragua · Pre-Hispanic petroglyphs | Carschenna, Sils im Domleschg, Graubünden, Switzerland · Prehistoric petroglyphs

Historical Archival Material — Schweizerischer Milchproduzentenfilm / Schweizerischer Milchfilm (1928) · Ernst Flückiger · Archiv für Agrargeschichte / Archives de l’histoire rurale | Alpsegen im Glarnerland (1930) · Ernst Flückiger · Archiv für Agrargeschichte / Archives de l’histoire rurale | Toros y toreros (1948) · Christian Anwander & Alberto Reig · Filmoteca Española / RTVE | Sanfermines, Pamplona — NO-DO nº 445-A (1951) · Filmoteca Española / NO-DO

Archival & Found Footage — Drawn from personal and family archives, historical audiovisual material, news broadcasts, and publicly circulating media from Nicaragua, Spain and Switzerland.

Additional Footage — Tamara Espinoza | Cinematography — Nicolás Abaunza | Editing Adviser — Rémi Vauthrin | Color Grading — Cezary Grzesiuk Still Photography: Francisco Puppo

Special Thanks — Chus Martínez · Onome Ekeh · Phoenix Atala · Cruz Franco Nazar · Ilja Zaharov · Lorena Juan