Addressing the oppression of indigenous people, Monterroso’s video-performance titled Rakoc Atin/Hacer Justicia (2008) reflects the contradictory relationship between mestizo society in Guatemala and native communities. Performing in front of Guatemala’s Supreme Court, the artist writes in salt the words “RAKOC ATIN,” which in Q’eqchi’ means “to make justice.” The action also includes four medical intravenous stands, each holding two large bags of IV solution. During the performance, the artist moves the IV stands slowly letting the solution escape, and creating holes where the salt dissolves. The dissolution of the letters refers in turn, to the absence of justice. The performance uses the public space and the Q’eqchi’ language to provoke the audience to consider the unpunished crimes and systematic violence inflicted upon indigenous people by the government and other social actors. More specifically Rakoc Atin/Hacer Justicia addresses the aftermath of the military dictatorship of Efraín Ríos Montt (1982–83), who, a few months after being convicted of genocide for killing 1,771 Maya-Ixil, was released by the Guatemalan Constitutional Court. During the genocide, Indian corpses were thrown in the Pacific Ocean denying them proper burial or rituals of mourning. Consequently the use of salt is a double metaphor that points to the government’s complicity in the bodies’ defilement, but also, paradoxically, makes reference to salt as a material used in Maya ceremonies of healing.

Taken from Sara Gazon’s essay Sandra Monterroso: Cultural Subversions in Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas Volume 8, Issue 1 (2015)