The film is set in a reimagined Garden of Eden, as the prelude to the evolution of the human species. The work was filmed in Gran Canaria, in the small village of Teror, during a residency Rose undertook with a group of artists at Espacio C. The video depicts Lucifer in the Garden of Eden, recounting his version of events.
The artist’s representation of Lucie first appears from a cave with a penis-shaped head while crawling on their belly through the soil like a serpent. They are depicted as non-binary (both male and female), exploring the terrain on the back of a donkey. Their face is covered with make-up that is reminiscent of the Mexican sugar skull, a decorative symbol of the skull from a decomposed corpse. An interview occurs between an unnamed interviewer (exhibition curator Orlando Britto-Jinorio) and the creature. Lucie reveals that they have been expelled from heaven and have fallen – or were pushed – to earth, because they dared to question God. They also state that the story of Genesis is fictional, and that they are a victim rather than the villain. As a satirical, dramatized reenactment, the film merges evolutionary science and biblical narratives into a queer retelling of the story of creation and humankind’s origin.
The twisting of mythology is played out in the works that continue the series. Instead of Jesus returning as a blonde, blue-eyed male, he/she becomes a Black lesbian from Zululand, in La Messie (The Messiah). In the Zulu language ‘izulu’ is also the word used to refer to heaven (fundamentally a Christian connotation) or the heavens (as in what lies beyond earth). In another photograph, Adam & Yves, two semi-nude men appear from a scene resembling the Garden of Eden, only the protagonists are not Adam and Eve but Adam and Yves.
