Alma Editorial

A Pressure Cooker That Burns

A Pressure Cooker That Burns
June 2020 María Natalia Leubro

Colombian artist María Natalia Leubro, shared this quarantine anecdote with us that humorously and critically relates a reality that, since confinement started, is a cause for widespread concern. How have our governments managed, or taken advantage of, the emergency health situation? Our intention is not to open a political debate in this space but to give us something to reflect upon. Thank you to María Natalia for allowing us to publish her text in Alma Editorial in which she talks about everyday domestic life.


Lentils, red beans, cargamanto beans, zaragoza beans, dried green peas, chickpeas, flavoured with parsley and coriander, marinated in onion, garlic, tomato, pepper, paprika, cumin and oregano, accompany my days in quarantine, they comfort my soul and calm my appetite; However, there’s a deep fear, a rabid fear that accompanies my meals, a fury that rushes through the auditory pavilion, meets the eardrum and a chain of ossicles until it reaches my heart.

That rage has a name, it has a lid and it has a rubber seal, that rage is called a pressure cooker. Every time I move the valve and lower the temperature it starts beeping at me with a pained scream:

In Bogotá, in Cali, in Barrancabermeja, in Cartagena they feel despair and hunger!
The only answer is repression!
There’s no support for small businesses and even less for medium ones!
CREDIT, Credit, Credit is all there is!
9 trillion for the banks, for the banks, FOR THE BANKS!
Prosecutor Barbosa continues to play the asshole!

And so it continues to whistle with fury, my pressure cooker is right, it’s a cooker that burns, a cooker on the brink of explosion.