Ana Mendieta’s film Untitled: Silueta Series (Gunpowder Works) features the burning of an ephemeral sculpture of a woman’s silhouetted body made from soil and gunpowder. In the silent work, three vignettes spliced into one reel reveal the sequence of Mendieta’s creative destruction, from the sculpture on the tranquil forest floor, to the flash of fire, then the charred, smokey aftermath.

This artwork brings to life Mendieta’s feelings as a displaced person born in Cuba and orphaned in rural Iowa, where the film was made. Drawing inspiration from the ritual traditions of Afro-Cuban Santería, the artist used soil and fire to envision the release of her spirit to her homeland. As Mendieta wrote in an untitled 1981 poem: “In Cuba when you die / the earth that covers us / speaks. / But here, / covered by the earth whose prisoner I am / I feel death palpitating underneath / the earth.”