A Fire in My Belly

David Wojnarowicz

1986-1987, 21 min, color and b&w, silent, Super 8mm film on video

Echoing themes explored throughout David Wojnarowicz’s art and writing, A Fire in My Belly is a visceral meditation on cultural and individual identity, spirituality, and belief systems. On a trip to Mexico City with Tommy Turner to scout Day of the Dead imagery, Wojnarowicz shot 25 rolls of super-8 film, documenting scenes that embodied the violence of city life. A central image is that of a child exploited as a fire-breathing street performer, which resonates in the title of the film and Wojnarowicz’s own experience hustling on the streets at a young age. He later staged scenes in his New York City apartment to combine with this footage, collecting dreamlike images to illustrate thematic sections he outlined in a cutting script. Among these images is a dancing, gun-wielding marionette, coins dropping into a plate of blood, vibrantly colored loteria cards, and the now iconic self-portrait of the artist with his lips sewn shut. A Fire in My Belly was never completed. What currently circulates and is preserved in the Fales Library Collection of NYU is a 13-minute version entitled A Fire in My Belly, A Work in Progress, and a 7-minute excerpt that possibly represents a chapter planned for the finished version.