The Weeping Nation
Presented by Agitator Gallery as part of Studio Sundays
In collaboration with the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival’s Scratch Night

The Weeping Nation is a performative intervention developed by Venezuelan artist Alonso Galue, exploring themes of exile, memory, and national mourning through the figure of a mother searching for her lost children. Drawing on Latin American folklore—including figures such as La Llorona, La Sayona, and La Loca Luz Caraballo—the work reframes these mythic maternal archetypes within the contemporary context of forced migration and political displacement.

The central character, performed by Galue, appears in public space wearing an oversized, sculptural puppet head constructed from cardboard, fabric, and tape. This figure—La Nación Llorona—is both a mother and a metaphor for the Venezuelan nation itself: a body dismembered by dictatorship, war, and diaspora. As she moves through the streets of Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood, she calls out for her children, symbolizing the millions of Venezuelans who have been forced to flee, often leaving behind families, identities, and a sense of belonging.

The performance foregrounds the emotional and psychological toll of exile, emphasizing how displacement not only erases national borders but also fragments personal and cultural memory. As Galue notes, “That is the punishment of exile: to be someone nowhere, to be unrecognizable to your peers and to yourself.” According to the 2023 World Migration Report, more than 7 million Venezuelans have been displaced globally, with 40% of the total global displaced population now comprising children—many born stateless, into what the artist describes as “citizenship of nowhere.”

The piece was created and developed as part of Studio Sundays, Agitator Gallery’s weekly community art program, and was followed by a public mask-making workshop, inviting participants to engage more directly with the symbolic language of the work. It was later presented during Scratch Night of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, a platform for experimental and process-based puppetry.

The Weeping Nation positions mourning as a political gesture and performance as a method of communal reflection. Through a quiet yet resonant act of walking, Galue constructs a moving monument to loss—one that asks us not only to witness exile, but to reckon with its ongoing human cost.

With special thanks to Yeison Perez and Eric Mercure for their collaboration in the creation, transportation, and documentation of the work.