After La Vida Nueva After La Vida Nueva

After La vida nueva After La vida nueva

Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program 2019 – 20 Table of Contents / Contenidos

Preface / Prefacio 5 After La vida nueva 12 Artist Pages / Artistas 100 Exhibition Checklist / Obras en la exhibición 150 Bibliography / Bibliografía 154 Acknowledgements / Agradecimientos 163

3 4 After La vida nueva was scheduled to run from July 24 to August a mode of delayed understanding that has retroactively revealed new 23 at Artists Space, culminating our year of working together as the dimensions of what the process of working on the show had been show’s curators. In mid-March, as the response to the novel coro- about. The artistic practices, research, interviews, and archival ma- navirus (which included shuttering nonessential businesses and terials that we present here are premised upon people sharing space mandating “social distancing”) began to take effect in New York, our together. They record movements, translations, and exchanges that time sharing intense and intimate physical and mental space was cut continue to foster a sense of community and comradery. short. Now, we’re grappling with being in between tenses and with After La vida nueva is named after a work in the exhibition by the sudden substitution of the physical with the virtual, which has Raúl Zurita, La vida nueva (1982), that memorializes the 1973 Chi- forced us to find alternative ways of being and working together. The lean coup, an event which some scholars cite as a point of origin for exhibition now consists of an expanded catalog and an online compo- the implementation of neoliberal policy as a state-sponsored practice. nent which will launch on Artists Space’s website August 7 and run Our exhibition began by looking back to this era, one that was once through August 31 (artistsspace.org/exhibitions/after-la-vida-nueva). full of the promise of the new and a period that followed various Given the current impossibility of public gathering and amidst the Third World liberation movements (many of which had reverber- urgent need for other definitions of what it means to be with one an- ations in New York City). Efforts to return to such moments echo other, the pandemic has affected a sense of afterwardsness, inducing throughout the works gathered here, including those of Theresa

After La vida nueva, que se iba a exhibir entre el 24 de julio y el 23 necesidad de otras definiciones sobre lo que implica estar lxs unxs de agosto en Artists Space, iba a ser la culminación de un año de tra- con lxs otrxs, la pandemia ha instaurado una sensación de retroac- bajo conjunto como curadorxs de la muestra. A mediados de marzo, tividad, un modo de comprensión retardada que retroactivamente ha en Nueva York entraron en vigor las medidas contra el nuevo corona- revelado nuevas dimensiones de nuestro trabajo para esta muestra. virus, que obligaron a cerrar comercios no esenciales y a implementar Las prácticas artísticas, la investigación, las entrevistas y los ma- “distancia social”, y que además nos impidieron seguir reuniéndonos teriales de archivo que presentamos aquí están pensados para un en un espacio común para continuar una colaboración muy intensa, espacio compartido. Registran desplazamientos, traducciones e in- tanto a nivel intelectual como físico. Ahora nos vemos forzadxs a tercambios que siguen fomentando la comunidad y la camaradería. vivir entre tiempos verbales, y a lidiar con el repentino pasaje de El nombre de la exposición, After La vida nueva, está tomado de lo físico a lo virtual, que nos ha obligado a buscar alternativas para una de las obras que la integran, La vida nueva (1982) de Raúl Zurita, estar y trabajar juntxs. La muestra ahora se compone de un catálogo que conmemora el golpe de Estado que tuvo lugar en Chile en 1973, extendido y de un módulo online que lanzaremos en el sitio web un acontecimiento que se suele considerar el punto de partida de la de Artists Space el 7 de agosto, y que estará disponible hasta el 31 implementación estatal de políticas neoliberales. Nuestra exhibición de ese mismo mes (artistsspace.org/exhibitions/after-la-vida-nueva). comienza remontándose a una época llena de promesas, en la este- Dada la actual imposibilidad de reunirse en público y la urgente la de varios movimientos tercermundistas de liberación (muchos de Hak Kyung Cha, Renée Green, Caroline Key, and Cici Wu. Investi- through their work about what constitutes this new life under glo- gating memories and archives, these artists present complex ways balization, how its contours and structures are formed, and who is of understanding both self and nation by sifting through the unsta- allowed to exist within its borders. ble terrain of the past. Their works bring to this exhibition a sense What comes After La vida nueva remains an open question. We’re of a moment in time lost and imperfectly recovered, its objects im- struggling to remember what came before, and object to the economi- bued with a latent hopefulness. cally motivated imperative to reopen and return to a condition of nor- Like Zurita, many of the artists and works in the exhibition re- mality when lives and livelihoods which were already subjected to spond to processes of neoliberalization and question the violent na- extreme precarity are at greater risk in the context of an international ture of the tabula rasa fantasies of a new global order. Artworks health crisis. Still, in light of the interminable stasis of the present, a by Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, Rummana Hus- sense of being stuck that is far bigger than the current conditions of sain, Alan Michelson, and Catalina Parra — which build on a range the pandemic, After La vida nueva also gestures towards futurity and of contexts, from the intensification of Hindu Nationalism to the the not yet here. In looking towards what comes after, the exhibition ratification of NAFTA — respond in local ways to the violence and implies the pursuit of a new life concomitant with new modes of be- discontinuities instituted by neoliberalism’s homogenizing sense of ing together. Rashaad Newsome and Amelia Bande elaborate alterna- the global. All of the artists in After La vida nueva raise questions tive forms of sociality and belonging in their respective performance

los cuales tuvieron reverberaciones en Nueva York). Hay ecos que locales a la violencia y a las discontinuidades instituidas por la idea intentan devolvernos a esa época en las obras aquí reunidas, como homogeneizante de lo global que defiende el neoliberalismo. Todxs las de Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Renée Green, Caroline Key y Cici lxs artistas de After La vida nueva se preguntan en sus obras en Wu. En su trabajo con recuerdos y archivos, estxs artistas dan cuen- qué consiste la vida nueva en la globalización, cómo se forman sus ta de las complejidades de la identidad individual y nacional, estu- contornos y sus estructuras, y quiénes tienen permitido existir en diando el suelo inestable del pasado. Sus obras traen a nuestra mues- sus fronteras. tra una sensación de recobrar de manera imperfecta un momento en Lo que vendrá después de esa vida nueva está por verse. Nos cuesta el tiempo, de objetos imbuidos de una esperanza latente. recordar lo que había antes, y nos oponemos al imperativo económico Como Zurita, muchxs de lxs artistas y obras que integran esta que exige reabrir todo y volver a la normalidad en un contexto en que muestra responden a procesos de neoliberalización y cuestionan la vidas y medios de existencia que ya se encontraban sometidos a una violencia de ese nuevo orden mundial y sus fantasías de tabula rasa. precariedad extrema ahora están aún más desprotegidas, en medio de Las obras del colectivo Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. una crisis sanitaria internacional. Sin embargo, a la luz de la quietud lab, Rummana Hussain, Alan Michelson, y Catalina Parra — que traba- interminable del presente, una sensación de asfixia que trasciende jan con una serie de contextos, desde la intensificación del naciona- largamente las condiciones de la pandemia, After La vida nueva a- lismo hinduista a la ratificación del TLCAN — responden con medios lude a lo futuro y a lo aún por venir. Al poner la mirada en lo que practices. The desire for a new life that their works index is a cru- dissemination of speech that characterizes gossip and that “asks an- cial force in this exhibition. other to imagine along, build a reality, make it true, if only for the This catalog consists of three booklets. The one you hold in your duration of the communication.”1 Foregrounding the role of orality hands includes our co-authored curatorial essay. Each section begins in the circulation and distribution of information, it comprises par- with a similar refrain, returning to the project by Zurita presented tial transcriptions of conversations with and between a number of in Queens, New York, in 1982, before moving on to address central artists in the exhibition and interlocutors who have been central to thematic frameworks of the exhibition: translation, site and interven- the formation of the show. tions in contested spaces, citational practices as modes of return, and New York as a place of crossings through the construction of a Third Colleen, Patricio, Sofia & Weiyi World New York. The second booklet, Book of Archives, includes May 29, 2020 materials that have been central to our research, including photographs, posters, newsletters, and ephemera that provide examples of how the activist and artistic alliances we look to were shaped by the print media they produced. The third booklet, Book of Gossip, 1 Judith Butler, “Solidarity/Susceptibility,” Social Text 137, vol. 36, no. 4, (December registers what Judith Butler describes as the “excited and excitable” 2018), 2.

viene después, la muestra sugiere la búsqueda de una vida nueva que recuerdos en papeles que muestran cómo esos materiales impresos traiga aparejadas nuevas formas de estar juntxs. Rashaad Newsome y moldearon las alianzas entre artistas y activistas que investigamos. El Amelia Bande elaboran formas alternativas de sociabilidad y pertenen- tercer cuadernillo, Libro de los chismes, registra la diseminación del cia en sus respectivas prácticas de performance. El deseo de una vida discurso “excitado y excitable” que es característica de los chismes nueva al que aluden sus obras es fundamental en esta muestra. según Judith Butler, los cuales exigen que “la otra persona se imagine Este catálogo se compone de tres cuadernillos. El que ahora tienen una realidad, la construya y la concrete durante la comunicación, por en las manos incluye nuestro ensayo curatorial escrito de manera poco que dure”.1 Poniendo en primer plano el rol de la oralidad en conjunta. Cada sección empieza repitiendo un estribillo que vuelve la circulación y distribución de información, incluye transcripciones al proyecto que Zurita presentó en Queens, en 1982, antes de pasar parciales de conversaciones con y entre artistas de la muestra e inter- a uno de los marcos temáticos centrales de la muestra: la traduc- locutorxs que fueron fundamentales para pensarla y llevarla a cabo. ción, lo local y las intervenciones en espacios disputados, la práctica de la cita como forma de recurrencia, y Nueva York como lugar de Colleen, Patricio, Sofia & Weiyi cruce a través de la construcción de una Nueva York tercermundista. 29 de mayo de 2020 El segundo cuadernillo incluye materiales que han sido fundamen- 1 Judith Butler, “Solidarity/Susceptibility,” Social Text 137, vol. 36, nro. 4, (diciembre tales en nuestra investigación, como fotografías, pósters, boletines y de 2018), 2.

La vida nueva Unlike most of Zurita’s early poetry, “La vida nueva” deploys short lines and simple phrasing, using words that appear or sound nearly On a sunny, cloudless day in June 1982, five decommissioned World identical in English and Spanish, including “CANCER” and “GHET- War II planes took off from Flushing Airport in Queens, New York. In TO” as well as “MI,” “ES,” and “NO.” At the same time, the inclu- white smoke-dots blotted across the sky, they typed out the Spanish sion of words such as “PAMPA” or “CHICANO” — which refer to the language poem “La vida nueva” by Chilean artist and poet Raúl Zu- peoples of Argentina and Mexico respectively — also index the par- rita [figs. 1, 2, pp: 12 − 13, 16 − 17]. Zurita’s visit to New York followed ticularity of place and ancestry. In that sense, the potentially plan- the migration of several Chilean friends who had left the country af- etary address of a work dedicated to all minorities should not im- ter the military coup of 1973 that led to the dictatorship of Augusto ply a universalist claim that would erase particularities. On that day Pinochet. A small group of fellow artists, including Juan Downey and in June, through words not necessarily understandable by everyone Alfredo Jaar, gathered at Flushing Airport to witness Zurita’s event. reading them, the poem reached out to a public beyond that of its Yet the work’s audience was arguably anyone who, at the perfect mo- author’s country and linguistic community. It involved those who ment in time and within visible radius of where the stanzas of the shared experiences of political violence and displacement, many of poem were being written, happened to gaze towards the sky from the whom were living, as migrants, a new life. ground, catching such phrases as, “MI DIOS ES HAMBRE/ MI DIOS ES NIEVE/ MI DIOS ES PAMPA/ MI DIOS ES NO.”1 With La vida nueva, Zurita explicitly broadened his practice’s scope of address Mouth to Mouth from the more immediate context of Chile’s history and politics. Quoted in a local newspaper the day after this etching in the sky Like Zurita, many of the artists in After La vida nueva treat lan- took place, the artist declared that the poem was dedicated to “all guage as a sited and embodied practice. Their works engage with the minorities of the world.”2 language critically and materially, eschewing traditional forms of “La vida nueva” was officially translated into English in the bi- signification and meaning-making, in order to open up common lingual edition of Anteparadise (1986), but La vida nueva (1982), the spaces. To that end, translation has been crucial for conceptualizing event of the skywriting, implies several crossings other than the punc- this endeavor. In the wake of post-colonial and post-structuralist tuating glide of the choreographed planes.3 Though seemingly printed theory, we take translation to be an ambivalent practice vis-à-vis in one tongue only, the poem’s writing in the sky over Queens sig- particularity, alterity, difference, and other notions associated with naled a crossing of national borders in the way it treated Spanish itself, the idea of an “original” that is supposed to be transposed into a challenging the correlation between language and nation as homog- so-called “target” language. That is to say, the concept of translation enous elements by making it more common, more understandable implies an opening up to, but also an appropriation of, the “Other.” to non-Spanish speakers, without losing reference to specific places. As an act, translation simultaneously makes visible and obfuscates. The importance of such obfuscation is often overlooked, however, especially when one understands translation simply as an act 1 A bilingual English/Spanish version of Zurita’s poem is available in the second booklet. that makes a primary text available to a broader audience. Engaging, 2 Betti Logan, “Double Takes: Chilean poet with a message offers some heavenly verse,” in Queens Tribune, June 3, 1982, n.p. for instance, the topic of World Literature, Emily Apter postulates 3 Raúl Zurita, “La vida nueva,” in Anteparadise: A Bilingual Edition, trans. Jack Schmitt that such global frameworks tend to treat “translatability as both a (Oakland: University of California Press, 1986), 1. given and heuristic good,” thereby devaluing “the importance of

14 15 non-translation and untranslatability of the politics of cultural re- and specifically makes room for the possibility of incomprehension.6 lationality.”4 The impasse reached when one attempts to bridge the The homogeneity of the homolingual model derives from the idea space between languages should not, in that sense, be considered that, in the linguistic exchange, senders and receivers presumably a failure of translation, but rather an opening to the horizon of rela- seek to access the same meaning (in some sense, despite the varia- tional possibilities in which one’s sense of language is not subsumed tions produced by translation). In the heterolingual model, the fact to the logic of universal communicability. A similar framework can that there is variation in translation is not only understood as an in- be applied to contemporary transnational exhibition making, which evitability — it is presupposed. In other words, meaning is made (and too often attempts to locate a single through-line among artworks remade) in the particular attempts to address one another, as language from several cultural contexts (with that line, itself an unproblema- operates within this inherently heterogeneous community. Pointing tized form of translation, ultimately leveling cultural specificity). beyond literary theory, Sakai gestures to the political implications of After La vida nueva brings together artists who address the forces the heterolingual framework by describing its sense of language us- of globalization and neoliberalism from within specific cultural con- ers as a “nonaggregate community of foreigners,” a “we” that does texts, spaces, and times. Yet it does so without having this collection not take “national, ethnic, or linguistic affiliation for granted.”7 of artworks and practices beat in a unison choir, nor turn into a ca- Mouth to Mouth, a video piece by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha made cophony of singular voices each enclosed in the affirmation of their in 1975, illustrates the possibilities of language when address becomes incomparable originality. What we’re after is the heterolingual rela- incomprehensible. Cha does this by pulling apart the two elements tions within and among these various works, a concept we borrow necessary for speech: the physical body and the immaterial voice. from Naoki Sakai. In his book, Translation and Subjectivity: On “Ja- This split is made within the audiovisual medium itself — Cha’s ed- pan” and Cultural Nationalism, Sakai distinguishes between what iting works against the convention of synchronized audio and video he calls a “homolingual address” and a “heterolingual address.” tracks — which the artist maps onto the tension between orality and In homolingual address, “the addresser adopts the position repre- writing [fig. 3, p: 20]. Her video begins with a slow pan across eight sentative of a putatively homogenous language society and relates Korean vowel graphemes, establishing a parallel between the acts of to the general addressees, who are also representative of an equally reading and watching. This is followed by a sequence of close-up homogenous language.”5 The mode of translation operating within shots of a mouth silently enunciating each of the eight vowels that al- this logic foregrounds communicability as its goal, seeking to mini- ternate with passages of video static. The close-up image of the mouth mize the collateral damage of potentially incomprehensible content recalls the central figure of a disembodied mouth inNot I (1972), a or material. Heterolingual address, by contrast, does not count on play by Samuel Beckett. However, unlike the mouth in Beckett’s play there being homogenous language communities at the sender and re- that never stops talking (thus pointing to the limits of meaning), the ceiver ends of any communication. Furthermore, it allows for recog- mouth in Cha’s video remains silent. The vowels are physicalized but nition of the disparity between “addressing” and “communicating,” not vocalized. Instead, the viewer hears only the sounds of running water, waves, and other noises that, together with the intermissions 4 Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (New York: Verso, 2013), 173. 6 Sakai, 6. 5 Naoki Sakai, Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism (Min- neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 4. 7 Sakai, 7.

18 19 of static that break up the string of vowels, suggest the struggle to speak. Insubordinate to their use in constructing words, each vowel becomes a discrete object for Cha to examine, flipping it slowly and delicately to reveal both its own inherent incompleteness and multi-dimensionality. This focus on vowels recalls Arthur Rimbaud’s sonnet Voyelles, in which the author begins by assigning one color each to A (black), E (white), I (red), U (green), and O (blue).8 Yet where Rimbaud’s synesthetic work creates an outward associative movement from these elements of the French alphabet, Cha ma- neuvers the Korean vowels inward through a deconstructive and reflexive gesture.9 Cha’s profuse practice, which includes writing as well as art, demonstrates a vested interest in the communal possibilities of such in-between spaces. Her most famous book, Dictée (1982) — published two years after the artist moved to New York from San Francisco — is an avant-garde novel, written in multiple languages and structured into nine sections, each named after a Greek muse [fig. 4, p: 23]. Each section is populated with multiple female characters (or “diseuses” as the artist refers to them) derived from ancient myth, mainstream cinema, political history, and the author’s personal and family life. The novel takes its title from the French word meaning “dictation,” though it also designates the exercise of typing spoken words, a practice typ- ical of the early stages of learning a new language. To the deconstruction of language presented in Mouth to Mouth, Dictée adds a

8 This ordering of vowels is taken directly from the first line of Rimbaud’s poem. See Arthur Rimbaud, “Vowels” in Arthur Rimbaud: Collected Poems, trans. Martin Sorrell (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 135. Hay traducción castellana, vid. “Vocales” en Arthur Rimbaud. Obra completa. Prosa y poesía, trad. J – F. Vidal Jover (Barcelona: Ediciones 29, 1972), 314. 9 For an analysis of the importance of voice and tactility in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s performances and videos, and a comparison between Mouth to Mouth and Beckett’s Not I, see Ana Pol, “El espacio del cuerpo y de la voz en los registros audiovisuales de las performances de Theresa Hak Kyung Cha,” Prisma Social, no. 2 (September 2017): 260 – 290.

20 21 preoccupation with language learning and translation particularly as part of a crucial, if ambivalent, aspect of the process of identity formation. Cha, the transcriber of these female figures, creates a place for gathering the multiplicity of “diseuses” between their respective languages and across the logical boundaries of space and time. Cha’s close attention to embodied language resonates with the projects of Rashaad Newsome and Caroline Key, artists who similarly explore the way the body suggests forms of heterolingual enunci- ations. Shade Compositions is a performance series launched by Newsome in 2005, which he has since presented in Paris, New York, San Francisco, Moscow, and Pittsburgh (among other places) [fig. 5, p: 26]. In early iterations, Newsome cast a local ensemble of self-identifying Black women and femme artists who perform sounds and gestures based on the act of throwing shade (expressing contempt or disrespect for another person). In later iterations, Newsome expanded the casting process to include other women and femme artists. For instance, in Shade Compositions (2012), a video piece based on a performance produced at SFMOMA, an ensemble of seventeen local women and drag artists snap their fingers, roll their eyes, smack their lips, and perform other sounds and movements that highlight the expressive dimension and unstable meanings of these nonverbal gestures. Newsome conducts the group like a choir director while remixing their articulations with a hacked video game controller, adding reverb and other digital effects in order to create an orches- tral structure based on repetition and crescendos of sonic intensity. Newsome has described these works as an investigation into Black vernacular, with a particular focus on how some of these gestures become appropriated within popular culture while others remain largely stigmatized or even associated with stereotypes of Black women. As a series, Shade Compositions incorporates idioms specific to the local communities represented in each iteration of the work, em- phasizing the mobility that comes with a gestural language and the

22 23 complexities implied by the swiftness of this language’s transmission of close-ups and careful editing, Key forces viewers to read into the in its global circulation. By amplifying and repeating bodily sounds gestures and expressions on the faces that do appear in her film, and physical postures that would not be translated or transcribed in seeing them as a counterpoint to the authority of the spoken or written a score or written text, Shade Compositions also finds a space that word. Indeed, as the artist’s father notes at one point in the film, in challenges assigned meanings and enables a shared agency. the absence of a shared language, one instead relies on a “feeling” of In Caroline Key’s 16mm filmSpeech Memory (2007), the artist the other, that is, on the extra-linguistic gestures and forms of expres- uses her own family to consider the ways in which imperial power is sivity that communicate outside of language proper. normalized through the control of language [figs. 6, 7, 8, pp: 30 − 32]. Key’s film is structured around her grandfather who was born deaf and grew up in the midst of the Japanese occupation of Korea that Partially Buried lasted from 1910 until 1945. Due to Japan’s restrictions on the use of Korean language, Key’s grandfather was taught Japanese sign lan- On a sunny, cloudless day in June 1982, five decommissioned World guage in school. Upon returning to Korea as an adult, however, Key’s War II planes took off from Flushing Airport in Queens, New York. grandfather lost his community of Japanese sign-language speakers. Writing in the open air, Zurita transformed the typically private As a consequence, he gradually forgot Japanese sign language and act of reading poetry into a communal ritual that enabled a poten- lost the ability to communicate in language altogether. The bulk of tial connection between people distant from one another [fig. 9, p: the film’s narrative is told through a dialogue between Key and her 36 − 37]. Since the 1970s, Zurita had been involved in the Chilean father, which is spoken in Korean but translated into English subti- neo avant-garde as an artist and poet, participating in happenings tles that appear printed over a black screen. These moments highlight and carrying out artistic interventions in urban spaces with the group the act of translation and are interspersed with untranslated foot- Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA). For a work titled Ay, Sudamérica age of Key’s father signing a form of pidgin Japanese sign language. (1981), CADA hired six airplanes to drop four hundred thousand Having never formally studied Japanese sign language, Key’s father pamphlets calling for the fusion of art and life over the streets of learned only basic sign by communicating with his father. Together, Santiago. On one hand, this action recalled the dropping of Paul Élu- they developed their own language — both a product of necessity but ard’s poem “Liberté” on German-occupied France by the British Royal also the result of the brutal effects of colonialism and its tendency Air Force in 1942. Yet it also contained a more immediate reference to enforce monolingualism in the construction of national unity. To to the 1973 coup led by the Chilean military, and backed by the Unit- the viewer, Key’s grandfather is seemingly without the ability to speak ed States, which began with an aerial bombing of the Presidential on his own behalf. In one harrowing section, for instance, the artist’s House that resulted in the death of democratically elected Salvador father recalls being forced to act as a court translator after his own Allende. This event marked not only a momentous break in Chile’s father was attacked in a park in the U.S. And yet, through the use history, but has often been used to demarcate the emergence of a

24 25 new world order known as neoliberalism, a political-economic project closely tied to the process of globalization.10 With the onset of globalization, global capital has revised and stretched the spatial and temporal configurations of the world until proximities appear as simultaneities. While the easing of tariffs and other trade controls has freed goods and capital to move across the world, national borders have been closed to the movement of bodies. The ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in January 1994, for instance, liberalized the markets between Cana- da, Mexico, and the U.S. by opening their borders to flows of com- modities along supply chains that now extended across North Amer- ica. NAFTA was coupled, however, with the implementation of border enforcement policies such as Operation Gatekeeper that were intended to strictly regulate the flow of foreign labor power between these countries. These conflicting policies — which simultaneously opened and closed the border between the United States and Mexi- co — led to the creation of a militarized border zone designed to de- ter undocumented migrants and, furthermore, force them onto “the most treacherous route into the US: the desert.”11 Weaponized, the

10 David Harvey, for instance, cites the 1973 bombing as ground zero in the rise of the contemporary neoliberal order. “How was neoliberalism accomplished and by whom?” he asks, continuing, “[t]he answer in countries such as Chile and Argentina in the 1970s was as simple as it was swift, brutal, and sure: a military coup backed by the traditional upper classes (as well as by the U.S. government), followed by the fierce repression of all solidarities created within the labour and urban social movements which had so threat- ened their power.” See David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 39. Hay edición castellana: Breve historia del neoliberalismo, trad. Ana Varela Mateos (Madrid: Akal, 2007). 11 Sergio Delgado Moya, “A Theater of Displacement: Staging Activism, Poetry and Mi- gration through a Transborder Immigrant Tool,” in Online Activism in Latin America, ed. Hilda Chacón (New York: Routledge, 2018), 34.

26 27 desert proves to be more than a natural landscape, acting as a tool ging a shallow rectangular hole in the earth and lining its perime- of border enforcement that functions strategically through death ter with burlap sacks filled with the excavated soil [figs. 10, 11, pp: and disappearance. 40 − 41]. The amorphous sacks can be read as imbunches,12 a motif In 1993 — over ten years after etching his monument to the mi commonly used by the artist, referring to a tormented figure from Ar- norities of the world in the sky over Queens, New York — Zurita once aucanian folklore whose every orifice has been sewn up.13 In addition again utilized the earth as a writing pad by inscribing “ni pena ni to these sacks, five rows of barbed wire were stretched across the miedo” on the face of the Atacama Desert. Written with industrial pit and anchored to the grassy terrain that otherwise surrounds this machinery, the phrase appeared at a scale so large it could only be intervention in the earth. The fixed geometry of the rectangle, em- depicted from an aerial view. To this day, the site is rumored to be phasized by the parallel lines of the wires, creates an anomaly in the maintained by children from a neighboring town who bring shovels otherwise natural landscape while at the same time conjuring the to reshape the letters in the sand as they are shifted by the wind. image of a freshly dug grave. The barricade created by the sacks and The Atacama desert is a forbidding landscape that is also haunted by wires prevents visitors from stepping into this hole, walling off this collective trauma. As the driest nonpolar location in the world, it ex- patch of earth as if to suggest it is a work in-progress. Fosa común tends one thousand kilometers along the Andes mountain range. thus holds a space to mourn unidentified or disappeared bodies The Pinochet regime used this harsh environment as the site for while also opening a place for public gathering and memorial. concentration camps where political dissidents were interred and for Parra would go on to repeat this project twice more, first in Porto mass graves where the bodies of the “disappeared” (those who had Alegre, Brazil, in 2001 and finally in the Atacama Desert near Calama, been taken surreptitiously by government forces) were buried. This political history was never officially confirmed, however, as knowl- 12 Throughout this text, written in English, we have made a decision to disobey the convention of italicizing isolated non-English words or phrases that might be unknown edge of Pinochet’s use of the Atacama Desert became known only to the reader. Refusing to mark the distinction between the so-called foreign and the through word-of-mouth, among local networks of communication familiar, we mean to challenge the presumption of English as our primary target lan- that shared stories of bodies turning up in the desert. Zurita’s exca- guage and, further, to question the dominance of English as a universal language and international system. vation of the Atacama Desert responds to this history of political 13 Sophie Halart offers an extended analysis of the imbunche as it appears in Parra’s violence that has at once shaped the land and yet still partially rework, and argues that Parra’s use of these sewn-up figures, as well as the specific stitching mains buried or dormant within the land. technique she uses in other works, is a gesture of reparation that leaves the wound open and visible, thus refusing notions of historical closure and cultural amnesia. See Sophie Outside Art Awareness Gallery in Lexington, New York, artist Halart, “Epidermal Cartographies: Skin as Map in Chilean Art (1979 – 1994),” Oxford Art Catalina Parra created the work Fosa común (1984) by manually dig- Journal 42, no. 3, (December 2019): 283 – 305.

La vida nueva servicio de la época de la Segunda Guerra Mundial despegaron del aeropuerto de Flushing, en Queens, Nueva York. Con letras punt- Un día de sol y sin nubes de junio de 1982, cinco aviones fuera de eadas de humo blanco, escribieron en el cielo el poema “La vida

28 29 30 31 Chile, in 2005 [figs. 12, 13, 14, 15, pp: 46− 47, 50 − 51].14 With each iteration the work has grown in scale both in terms of the size of the pit itself as well as the collective labor required to witness and maintain it. In its most recent iteration in Chile, Parra used a Cat- erpillar excavator to dig into the land. It is rumored that the same excavator was used by Pinochet’s regime to dig up the mass graves in the Atacama Desert after it was realized that the bodies they had been dumping there would not decay but instead remain preserved in the vast salt flats of the extremely arid landscape. Parra’s use of the Caterpillar thus refers to this atrocious act, albeit one that is known only through the communal exchange of unverifiable information.15 Absent any official record of the efforts made to suppress this history of violence, Parra appropriates the rumor. Even today, in Calama, a team of local volunteers continue to assist with maintenance of this site, adding a deeper collective dimension to the afterlife of the work. While Parra’s work indexes how the earth was used to hide atroc- ities committed by the Pinochet regime, Alan Michelson’s work uses the earth to index the forms of violence and theft perpetuated under

14 In these later iterations, “común” was dropped from the title and the work was simply referred to as FOSA. 15 The specific excavator is itself indicative of the flows of global capital, for Caterpillar has also sold machinery to the Israeli government which was subsequently used to de- molish Palestinian homes in the Gaza strip.

nueva”, del poeta y artista chileno Raúl Zurita [figs. 1, 2, pp: 12 − 13, 16 − 17]. La visita a Nueva York de Zurita tenía lugar años después de los viajes de varixs amigxs chilenxs que habían tenido que emigrar luego del golpe de 1973 que llevó a la dictadura de Augusto Pino- chet. Un pequeño grupo de otrxs artistxs, entre ellxs Juan Downey y Alfredo Jaar, se dieron cita en el aeropuerto de Flushing para asistir

32 33 settler colonialism. In the installation, Permanent Title (1993), Mi- power, into deathly insignias, Permanent Title also makes a gesture chelson considers the subterranean geography of Lower Manhattan towards their destruction and erasure. [fig. 16, p: 61]. The work is comprised of a series of charcoal and Permanent Title (1993) not only foregrounds the relation between stone rubbings done on waxed muslin sacks of various sizes that American capitalism and the genocide of Indigenous peoples, but by make reference to colonial-era burial shrouds. To make these works, specifically examining early settler graveyards Michelson also ges- Michelson visited parks, buildings, and sidewalks throughout Low- tures to the conflicting conceptions of property and heritage between er Manhattan that have been erected on top of early colonial settler settler and Indigenous communities. Settler colonial conceptions of graveyards. He then made his rubbings from the plaques he found property commodified land and transformed it into an object that there. Tellingly, the sacks are not filled with a record of colonial his- could be traded, bought, and sold in contrast to Indigenous relations tory, but instead display an array of icons and textual fragments, in- to land which were grounded in communal and ancestral bonds. cluding the recognizable signage of multinational companies such as The theft of Indigenous land by settlers was premised upon the le- Chase Bank and McDonald’s. Permanent Title implicates these busi- gal transformation of land into property. Robert Nichols reconstructs nesses in the ongoing project of settler colonialism. Yet, further in- this as the recursive logic of dispossession; the effect was such that sight into the work can be drawn from Michelson’s process, which “one was either an Indian or a homesteader.”16 The title of Michel- recalls the tradition of gravestone rubbing, itself an important part son’s work, which refers to the legal document that confers property of both archival record keeping and the science of genealogy. The rights over land to the title-holder, ironically asserts the erasure of genealogy of wealth associated with descendants of the colonists community ties in both Indigenous and settler communities via the is certainly coterminous with the major corporations and wealthy privatization of property under capitalism. In a conversation with the families whose emblems appear throughout Permanent Title. But artist, Michelson discusses how native people couldn’t understand gravestone rubbing is also a controversial practice, for it contributes to the erosion of the underlying stone one is attempting to re- 16 Robert Nichols, “Theft is Property! The Recursive Logic of Dispossession,” Political cord. Transmuting these brand icons, symbols of American corporate Theory 46, no. 1 (2018): 19.

al evento de Zurita. Sin embargo, el público podía ser cualquiera de escribir en el cielo, el artista declaró para un periódico local que el que estuviera en el radio de visibilidad y mirara al cielo en el mo- poema estaba dedicado “a todas las minorías del mundo”.2 mento preciso, para encontrarse con versos como “MI DIOS ES “La vida nueva” se tradujo oficialmente al inglés en la edición HAMBRE / MI DIOS ES NIEVE / MI DIOS ES PAMPA / MI DIOS ES bilingüe de Anteparaíso [Anteparadise] (1986), pero La vida nueva NO”.1 Con La vida nueva, Zurita trascendía de manera explícita el (1982), la escritura en el cielo, supone varios cruces además de la contexto histórico y político chileno más inmediato. Al día siguiente

2 Betti Logan, “Double Takes: Chilean poet with a message offers some heavenly verse”, 1 Se incluye una versión bilingüe del poema en el segundo cuadernillo. en Queens Tribune, 3 de junio de 1982.

34 35 how colonists could leave their ancestors behind and, conversely, Since 1998 the artist-activist group Electronic Disturbance Theater how they expected native people to leave their ancestors behind.17 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab (EDT) has been developing the Transborder Immigrant The work thus asserts the forcible dispossession of native peoples Tool (TBT) in relation to the borderlands around the Tijuana/San and the perplexing self-imposed dispossession of settlers. By holding Diego region [figs. 17, 18, 19, pp: 66, 70 − 71]. The group refers to these two contradictory claims together, Michelson’s work asserts the their work as “tactical media,” as TBT is a GPS program distributed presence of multiple claims to land, pointing to the way in which the on repurposed cellphones that helps border-crossers navigate to water capitalist and settler geography was superimposed upon an already caches left by non-profit and grassroots activist organizations (such as established landscape shaped by Indigenous presence. In this line of Border Angels and Water Station) along the treacherously arid route thinking, then, Michelson’s work can be seen as a kind of Earthwork through the Anza-Borrego Desert. TBT was conceived as an affordable or Land Art that does not lay claim to land nor seek ownership over way to covertly distribute this vital information to migrants. More it, but rather forms an alliance with the land that rejects, and even than a map, its software uses a unidirectional form of GPS that blocks erases, the symbols of colonial wealth and power that mark the built the transmission of location data often sent from cellphones and that, environment today. Permanent Title thinks with the land and past its present possession, while at the same time refusing any notion of the been systematically dispossessed, criminalized, and erased from the national heritage possibility of return to a pastoral antecedent before Lower Manhattan of Chile. Indeed, in the celebrated fall of Pinochet’s dictatorial regime, one might also was irrevocably altered by settlement and industrialization.18 locate a re-silencing of the much longer history of political violence directed at Indig- enous populations. Amelia Bande, for instance, comments that, “[t]he drama of the dictatorship was so huge that the arrival of democracy offered a kind of hope that was 17 Alan Michelson, in conversation with the authors, June 3, 2020. a silencing of a crisis that never ended.” Amelia Bande in conversation with Aimé Ig- 18 Resonance can be found between the struggle among artists and activists to dismantle lesias Lukin, Director & Chief Curator at the Americas Society, “In The Studio: Amelia settler colonialism in the United States and the anti-government protesters in Santiago Bande,” Instagram live conversation, May 22, 2020. Video archived at: https://www. that are being organized under the flag of the Indigenous Mapuche people who have as-coa.org/events/studio-amelia-bande.

coreografía puntuada por el vuelo de los aviones.3 Aunque parecía es- poesía de Zurita, “La vida nueva” tiene versos cortos y una sintaxis tar en un solo idioma, la escritura del poema en el cielo de Queens muy simple, con palabras que suenan casi igual en castellano e in- ya señalaba un cruce de fronteras nacionales por su tratamiento del glés, como “CANCER”, “GHETTO”, “MI”, “ES” y “NO”. A la vez, castellano, poniendo en cuestión la correlación entre lengua y na- la inclusión de palabras como “PAMPA” o “CHICANO” — referen- ción como elementos homogéneos, al volverla más común, más com- cias a los pueblos de Argentina y de México, respectivamente — dan prensible para no hispanohablantes, sin perder referencia a lugares cuenta de lo particular de la procedencia y la genealogía. En ese específicos. A diferencia de la mayor parte de la primera etapa de la sentido, el alcance potencialmente planetario de una obra dedicada a todas las minorías no implicaba una reivindicación universalista

3 Raúl Zurita, “La vida nueva”, en Anteparadise: A Bilingual Edition, trad. Jack Schmitt que borrara las particularidades. Ese día de junio, aunque no todxs (Oakland: University of California Press, 1986), 1. lxs que leyeron esas palabras las pudieran entender, el poema llegó

38 39 40 41 in this case, might disclose the position (and thereby endanger) those Though TBT was originally intended as a functional device, EDT’s seeking extra-state routes between Mexico and the United States. project received such wide scale media attention that the distribu- In addition, the phones play sound files of poems written by EDT tion of the technology became impossible. In 2010, an investigation of members that reflect lyrically on the desert while also conveying folk EDT was launched by “three Republican Congressmen, the FBI Office wisdom about the landscape.19 A navigational code-based poetic of Cybercrimes, and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) system, TBT maps the Anza-Borrego Desert while at the same time where Ricardo Dominguez (co-founder of EDT with Brett Stalbaum) countering the cartography of the State and circumventing the legal [remains] an Associate Professor in the visual arts department.”21 practices of governments which exert mastery over the land and the Accusations were levied against EDT on the grounds that they were movement of bodies under its jurisdiction.20 The work positions art using public funds provided by UCSD to support illegal immigration. as a vital necessity to border-crossers. Today, TBT circulates as an art object and is often presented alongside a bilingual English/Spanish poetry book. Together, these com-

19 EDT intended for border-crossers to turn the phones on only at moments of critical ponents engage viewers in a counter-narrative of the border — which, need because of their limited battery-life. However, the coexistence of poetry with the as Apter argues, is also itself a zone of translation, a site of struggle navigational function of the phones proposes that, for border-crossers, the nourishment offered by art may be as vital a necessity as water in the desert. By insisting on the insepara- 21 Leila Nadir, “Poetry, Immigration and the FBI: The Transborder Immigrant Tool” Hyper- bility of art and the basic needs of life, TBT problematizes the division in western thought allergic (July 23, 2012): https://hyperallergic.com/54678/poetry-immigration-and-the-fbi- (following the Enlightenment) between the enjoyment of art and the necessity of manual the-transborder-immigrant-tool/. In 2019, activists working with No More Deaths, a group labor, wherein the former is elevated to a bourgeois luxury and denied to the worker. that leaves water and supplies in border crossing corridors, were tried on federal charges 20 According to Zurita, one way of circumventing censorship in Chile was by describing that included driving in a wilderness area and “abandoning property.” For more on the projects as addressing ecology or cybernetics. Authorities, who were often unfamiliar with threats made against EDT and TBT, see Hrag Vartanian, “Art Professor Under Fire for Artis- these terms, tended to ignore these projects. Raúl Zurita, conversation with the authors, tic Protests,” Hyperallergic (April 8, 2010): https://hyperallergic.com/5018/ricardo-domin- January 7, 2020. guez-under-fire/.

a un público que trascendía el país y la comunidad lingüística del do formas tradicionales de significación y construcción de sentido, a autor. Reunió a personas que compartían experiencias de violencia fin de abrir espacios comunes. Para eso, el concepto de traducción se política y desplazamientos, muchas de las cuales ahora vivían una vuelve crucial. Con la teoría poscolonial y postestructuralista, enten- vida nueva en calidad de inmigrantes. demos la traducción como una práctica ambivalente en relación con lo particular, la alteridad, la diferencia y otras nociones asociadas a la idea de un “original” que supuestamente debe trasladarse a una Boca a boca llamada lengua “de destino”. Es decir, el concepto de traducción implica una apertura hacia lo Otro, pero también una apropiación. Co- Al igual que Zurita, muchos de los artistas de After La vida nueva mo práctica, la traducción hace visible a la vez que oscurece. piensan el lenguaje como una práctica situada y que involucra el cuer- Sin embargo, a menudo se pierde de vista la importancia de esa opa- po. Sus obras hacen un uso crítico y material del lenguaje, evitan- cidad, especialmente cuando se entiende la traducción simplemente

42 43 over meaning — gesturing towards a decolonial imaginary in which mapping, charting an expansive and virtual migratory imaginary undocumented migration across borders is not criminalized. TBT that refuses neoliberal exclusionary geographies.24 uses virtual space to reconfigure the material site (or territory), even asserting the former as a critical site for contesting claims to land.22 That is to say, the site of the work, especially if read along- Living on the Margins side the terms for site-specificity defined by artist Robert Smithson, is neither the “physical, raw reality — the earth or ground,” nor the On a sunny, cloudless day in June 1982, five decommissioned World re-presentation of the site in the space of the gallery (what Smith- War II planes took off from Flushing Airport in Queens, New York son titles a “non-site” or “abstraction”), but exists somewhere in [fig. 20, p: 74 − 75]. Later that same year, Tanam Press published The- between.23 TBT points out the abstraction inherent to processes of resa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée (1982), a wide-ranging book that takes as its point of departure the Japanese occupation of Korea. Blending Korean, English, and French, Dictée’s use of language challenges the 22 Alan Michelson has also used augmented reality to contest land claims, specifical- notion of a “mother tongue,” rebuking the use of language as a cul- ly over Lower Manhattan. In his 2019 exhibition at the Whitney Museum, Michelson tural and political weapon in constructing ideas of the nation, which presented Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field) (2019), an artwork viewed through an app downloaded to the visitor’s smartphone that used augmented reality technology to picture often silence dissident ways of being and speaking in the world. For the lobby of the Whitney Museum as a tobacco field — a different kind of reliquary for cultural value. 24 For more on TBT’s critique of both conservative and liberal frameworks for addressing the border, see Alison Reed, “Queer Provisionality: Mapping the Generative Failures 23 Robert Smithson, “Earth: Symposium at White Museum, Cornell University, 1970,” of the Transborder Immigrant Tool,” Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association in The Writings of Robert Smithson: Essays with Illustrations, ed. Nancy Holt (New York: 4 (2015). Accessed March10, 2020: csalateral.org/issue/4/queer-provisionality-map- New York University Press, 1970), 160. ping-the-generative/.

como una práctica que acerca un texto primario a un público más en el que la propia idea de la lengua esté subsumida a la lógica de amplio. Por ejemplo, a propósito de la cuestión de la literatura mun- la comunicabilidad universal. El mismo marco se puede aplicar al dial, Emily Apter afirma que esos marcos globales suelen hacer de la mercado transnacional de las exhibiciones de arte, que con demasia- traducibilidad “algo que se da por sentado y que es un bien heu- da frecuencia intentan trazar una línea única para vincular obras de rístico”, y en consecuencia devalúan “la importancia de la no traduc- distintos contextos culturales (y esa línea es, en sí misma, una for- ción y de la política de la relacionalidad cultural”.4 En ese sentido, el ma de traducción que habría que problematizar, porque aplana la callejón sin salida al que se llega cuando se intenta zanjar la grie- especificidad cultural). ta entre lenguas no debe considerarse un fracaso de la traducción, After La vida nueva reúne artistas que critican la globalización sino una apertura hacia el horizonte de posibilidades relacionales y el neoliberalismo desde contextos culturales, lugares y momentos específicos. Pero lxs reúne sin que este conjunto de obras y prácticas

4 Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (New York: se conviertan en un coro monocorde, ni se vuelvan una cacofonía Verso, 2013), 173. de voces individuales, cada una encerrada en la afirmación de su

44 45 46 47 Cha, the act of re-visiting such histories and stories is reparative protagonist who slowly regains her memory. Cha’s meticulously rather than restorative. As she writes: laid out plans, however, were disrupted by the Gwangju Uprising (a student-led pro-democracy demonstration against the South Ko- Why resurrect it all now. From the Past. History, the old wound. rean Military) that began on May 18, 1980. Unable to continue film- The past emotions all over again. To confess to relive the same ing, Cha abandoned the film and redirected her efforts towards a folly. To name it now so as not to repeat history in oblivion. To book instead. extract each fragment by each fragment from the word from the At a rare screening of Cha’s unfinished film at the Museum of image another word another image the reply that will not repeat Art and Design in New York in 2017, artist Cici Wu attended with a history in oblivion.25 prototype of her project Foreign Object #1 Fluffy Light — a portable light-reading device that translates light-waves into binary code that Cha’s interest in history and memory is made manifest in the plan- is then recorded on an SD-card. Surreptitiously recording Cha’s film ning for her film, White Dust from Mongolia, which Cha intended to fragments, and translating them into data, Wu subsequently created make upon returning to Korea in 1980 with her brother. Designed to an installation titled Upon Leaving the White Dust (2018). For this be the artist’s first narrative film, it follows the story of an amnesiac work, the artist laid out a grid of ceramic objects molded after Cha’s storyboard for the film and over this assembly projected a digital 25 Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictée (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 33. video that translated the binary code back into light. The resulting

originalidad incomparable. Lo que buscamos en y entre estas obras materiales o contenidos potencialmente incomprensibles. Por con- son relaciones heterolingües, un concepto que tomamos prestado de traste, la enunciación heterolingüe no da por sentada la existencia de Naoki Sakai. En su libro Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” comunidades lingüísticas homogéneas, ni desde el punto de vista de and Cultural Nationalism, Sakai distingue entre una “enunciación lxs enunciadorxs ni del de lxs enunciatarixs. Además, permite que homolingüe” y una “enunciación heterolingüe”. En la enunciación se reconozca la disparidad entre “enunciación” y “comunicación”, y homolingüe, “la enunciadora o el enunciador adoptan la posición retoma en cuenta la posibilidad de la incomprensión.6 La homogenei- presentativa de una comunidad lingüística que se supone ho- dad del modelo homolingüe es consecuencia de la idea de que, en un mogénea, y se relaciona con enunciadorxs que también representan intercambio lingüístico, se presume que lxs emisorxs y lxs receptorxs una lengua igualmente homogénea”.5 La modalidad de traducción buscan acceder a un mismo sentido (de alguna manera, a pesar de las que resulta de esta lógica tiene como objetivo principal la comuni- variaciones que produce la traducción). En el modelo heterolingüe, cabilidad, y busca minimizar el daño colateral que puedan provocar el hecho de que la traducción produzca variaciones no sólo se entiende como algo inevitable, sino que además se presupone. En otras

5 Naoki Sakai, Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism (Min- neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 4. 6 Sakai, 6.

48 49 50 51 moving image is composed of flickering, abstract patterns. Wu’s act phic. When the sculpture is activated, a red light turns on to indicate of bootlegging Cha’s film also becomes a point of abstraction, one it is recording. Positioned on the armrest of a repurposed cinema that can be thought of as the attempt to extract Cha’s unfinished chair, the work bears a haptic quality while also acting as a tool work, to recall an image lost to history. Furthermore, by not faithful- of surveillance. ly reproducing the fragments of Cha’s film that do remain, Wu’s work The complexity of historical returns is foregrounded in Renée also questions the necessity of the image in its documentary mode, Green’s Partially Buried (1996) and Partially Buried Continued its scopophilic making visible of the subject. The abstract images re- (1997), which are two works in a three-part series that weaves an flect on the (im)possibility of historical transmission and objectivity. intertextual collage between the artist’s family history, American Neither Cha nor Wu are able to see or produce the images they de- political events, and American art [fig. 22, p: 84]. InPartially Bur- sire, and their respective projects exist in the realm of the unfulfilled. ied, Green returns to one of Robert Smithson’s earthworks, Partially Wu has made a number of iterations of Foreign Object, playing Buried Woodshed (1970), a project executed at Kent State Univer- with the dimensions, scale, form, and materiality of the device. While sity that inadvertently became a symbol of the Kent State Shootings the functional machine is a discrete metal box, Foreign Object #1 (which took place later that same year) when a student painted “May Fluffy Light (2018) [fig. 21, p: 79] is a sculptural reinterpretation of 4 Kent 70” on the shed’s lintel. Green’s video relates Smithson’s the device meant for display. Comprised of a bulbous, opalescent earthwork to her mother’s experience of being a student at KSU during glass shape that contains photo-sensitive light readers and an SD- this time. Reflecting nostalgically on the parallel histories of radical card running on an Arduino platform, Fluffy Light is vaguely biomor- protest and experimental art, Green narrates, “protest seemed more

palabras, el sentido se construye (y reconstruye) a cada intento de gar en el propio soporte audiovisual — la edición de Cha va en contra entendernos, dado que el funcionamiento de la lengua tiene lugar de la convención que sincroniza las pistas de audio y de video — , en una comunidad que es en sí heterogénea. Sakai se extiende más una ruptura que la artista superpone con la tensión entre oralidad allá de la teoría literaria, y señala las implicancias políticas de ese y escritura [fig. 3, p: 20]. El video empieza con un paneo lento sobre heterolingüismo, y describe a lxs hablantes como “una comunidad ocho grafemas vocálicos en coreano, que trazan un paralelo entre leer heterogénea de extranjerxs”, un “nosotros” que no da por sentada y mirar. Le sigue una secuencia de primeros planos de una boca que, “nacionalidad, etnia o lengua”.7 en silencio, enuncia cada una de estas ocho vocales, que se alternan Mouth to Mouth, una obra en video de 1975 de Theresa Hak Kyung con pasajes de estática visual. El primer plano de la boca recuer- Cha, da cuenta de las posibilidades de la lengua cuando la enuncia- da la centralidad de la boca sin cuerpo de Not I (1972), la obra de ción se vuelve incomprensible. Cha separa dos elementos necesarios Samuel Beckett. Sin embargo, a diferencia de la boca de la obra de del habla: el cuerpo físico y la voz inmaterial. Esta ruptura tiene lu- Beckett, que no para de hablar (y, en consecuencia, hace referencia a los límites del sentido), la boca del video de Cha permanece en 7 Sakai, 7. silencio. Las vocales cobran entidad física, pero sin vocalizarse. En

52 53 compelling.” This is further emphasized by the video’s score which alongside the makeshift genealogy Green constructs from her paris set to Buddy Miles’ 1970 single, “Them Changes” and evokes the ent’s memories, become an integral way of situating the artist herself atmosphere of protest and oppositional language that characterized within a historically specific yet nonlinear continuity. the late-1960s and early-1970s. Partially Buried Continued repris- Much like Green, Indian performance artist Rummana Hussain es these themes of art and politics, as well as personal and public similarly embraces the simultaneity of personal and public histories histories, by focusing on Green’s father and particularly his experi- in her work, situating herself in relation to these narratives through ence as an American officer during the Korean War. Green creates her activation of Indian cultural and religious traditions. In her per- a montage of the Polaroid photographs taken by her father during formance, Living on the Margins (1995), Hussain wears ghungroos, his deployment with ruminations on Cha’s Dictée, combining this an anklet with bells tied on the feet in Indian classical dance, that with original footage shot during Green’s own visit to South Korea chime as she walks slowly around the perimeter of an open court- as part of a commission. As in Cha’s practice, Green plays with the yard while carrying various props such as a halved papaya and the use of spoken versus written language through the interplay between head of a vacuum cleaner [fig. 23, p: 88]. She periodically stops and the videos. Partially Buried is narrated via oral histories and inter- opens her mouth wide in a silent scream. The halved papaya she views that connect disparate points of reference. In contrast, Partially carries, which appears in a number of her works, echoes the ges- Buried Continued features scrolling purple text running horizontally ture of the open mouth and evokes analogies with bodily orifices. across the frame. The art historical citations of Smithson and Cha, The vacuum head, which she runs across the grass, makes a clear

cambio, lxs espectadorxs sólo escuchan ruido de agua, olas, entre hacia fuera a partir de esos elementos del alfabeto francés, Cha ma- otros sonidos — amén de la estática que se entromete e interrumpe la nipula las vocales coreanas con un desplazamiento hacia dentro, me- seguidilla de vocales — que dan cuenta de la dificultad de hablar. Al diante un gesto deconstructivo y reflexivo.9 librarlas de la subordinación a construir palabras, Cha examina cada La prolífica práctica artística de Cha, que además de dedicarse a vocal por separado como si fuera un objeto, que manipula con esme- las artes visuales también escribía, demuestra un fuerte interés en ro y delicadeza para revelar su carácter intrínsecamente incompleto y las posibilidades que ofrecen esos lugares intermedios. Su libro más multidimensional. Ese lugar central que ocupan las vocales recuerda famoso, Dictée (1982), que publicó dos años después de mudarse de el soneto “Voyelles”, de Arthur Rimbaud, que en el primer verso le a- San Francisco a Nueva York, es una novela de vanguardia, escrita en signa un color a cada una: A negra, E blanca, I roja, U verde y O varios idiomas y dividida en nueve partes, cada una con el nombre azul.8 Si la sinestesia de Rimbaud produce un movimiento asociativo de una musa griega [fig. 4, p: 23].

8 El orden de las vocales está tomado del primer verso del poema de Rimbaud. Vid. 9 Para un análisis de la importancia de la voz y el tacto en las performances y videos de “Vowels” en Arthur Rimbaud: Collected Poems, trad. Martin Sorrell (Nueva York: Oxford Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, y una comparación entre Mouth to Mouth y Not I, de Beckett, vid. University Press, 2001), 135. Hay traducción castellana, vid. “Vocales” en Arthur Rimbaud. Ana Pol, “El espacio del cuerpo y de la voz en los registros audiovisuales de las perfor- Obra completa. Prosa y poesía, trad. J – F. Vidal Jover (Barcelona: Ediciones 29, 1972), 314. mances de Theresa Hak Kyung Cha”, Prisma Social, nro. 2 (septiembre de 2017): 260 – 290.

54 55 reference to domestic labour. These solemn gestures are repeated un- against Muslims in India that Ram Rahman likened to the events of til the audience is invited to join Hussain in scattering indigo and 9/11.26 During this period Hussain removed the identifiably Muslim gheru, a red ochre dust powder, on the ground — both of which are nameplate from her home in Mumbai and fled with her family, re- used for religious, medicinal and aesthetic purposes — bringing the turning only after the pogroms had ceased.27 She became a member of performance to an end. the Sahmat Collective, a New Delhi-based organization (named after Widely referred to as the first performance artist in India, Hus- the late playwright Safdar Hashmi) dedicated to producing artistic in- sain’s turn to performance was directly motivated by the events of terventions against communalism.28 Performance offered the artist a the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition. In the 1990s, India was under- going a period of economic liberalization accompanied by the in- 26 Rahman observed, “Just as the mosque demolition changed India forever, 9/11 changed America.” Ram Rahman, “The day America changed forever,” The Hindu, 10 September, tensification of communalist violence backed by a Hindu-nationalist 2011, accessed 10 June, 2020. https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/the-day-amer- government. The Babri Masjid became a site of contention as it was ica-changed-forever/article2441531.ece. believed to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama. After years 27 Jyoti Dhar, “Rummana Hussain: Prescient Provocateur,” Art Asia Pacific (September/ October 2014), 99. of tension, a coalition of Hindu Nationalist groups spearheaded a 28 For a history of Sahmat and its activities, see Jessica Moss and Ram Rahman, The campaign to construct a Hindu temple on the site. The destruction Sahmat Collective: Art and Activism in India since 1989 (Chicago: The Smart Museum of of the mosque marked the climax of a wave of organized violence Art, University of Chicago, 2013).

En cada sección, hay varios personajes femeninos (o “diseuses”10, estas figuras femeninas, crea un lugar de reunión para esa multipli- como las llama la artista) tomados de la mitología, el cine mainstream, cidad de “diseuses” entre sus respectivas lenguas y entre los límites la historia política y la historia personal y familiar de la autora. El títu- lógicos del espacio y el tiempo. lo de la novela es una palabra que en francés significa “dictado”, que La atención minuciosa que le dedica Cha a la corporalidad del len- en castellano también designa un ejercicio escolar muy difundido en guaje entra en resonancia con los proyectos de Rashaad Newsome y la primera etapa del aprendizaje de la lectoescritura. A la deconstruc- Caroline Key, artistas que también estudian formas de enunciación ción del lenguaje que lleva a cabo Mouth to Mouth, Dictée le suma heterolingüe que el cuerpo hace posibles. Shade Compositions es una la inquietud por el aprendizaje de la lengua y por la traducción, en serie de performances iniciada por Newsome en 2005, que desde en- particular por el papel crucial, aunque ambivalente, que juegan en el tonces ha presentado en París, Nueva York, San Francisco, Moscú y proceso de formación de la identidad. Cha, en tanto transcriptora de Pittsburgh (entre otras ciudades) [fig.5, p: 26]. En las primeras presentaciones, Newsome convocó a un elenco local de artistas negras 10 En todo este catálogo, escrito en inglés, decidimos desobedecer la convención de resal- tar en bastardilla palabras o frases que no estén originalmente en inglés, o que lxs lectorxs que se autopercibían mujeres o femmes y que, con el cuerpo y con la pudieran no entender. Al rechazar la distinción entre lo propio y lo supuestamente ex- voz, realizaban gestos que expresaban desdén o falta de respeto por tranjero, queremos cuestionar la presuposición de que el inglés sea nuestra lengua principal de destino, y sobre todo criticar el dominio del inglés en tanto idioma universal y otras personas, algo que en inglés se dice coloquialmente “to throw sistema internacional. shade”, “tirar sombra”. En presentaciones posteriores, Newsome

56 57 means of grappling with the rapid shifts within Indian society and a infection.29 The maid’s fear of losing her livelihood prevented her primary avenue through which Hussain could address questions of from disclosing her illness to Hussain. Hussain’s performance lay- identity and social belonging, questions that had been thrust upon ers the conditions of domesticity with references to illness, issues her in the wake of the Babri Masjid. of class, and state-sanctioned violence in order to critique and chal- In Living on the Margins, the gesture of the open mouth, in particu- lenge prevailing notions of femininity in India. lar, points to a broader struggle to give voice to the role of women in the social reproduction of society, and to represent but also critique the confinement of this role. In this way, Hussain’s open mouth ges- New York in Third World Lingo ture recalls the close-cropped imagery of Cha’s Mouth to Mouth. Yet it also has a more immediate reference to Hussain’s life. Living On a sunny, cloudless day in June 1982, five decommissioned World on the Margins followed the artist’s discovery that her maid had War II planes took off from Flushing Airport in Queens, New York, contracted HIV, a fact she learned only by observing that her maid to write Raúl Zurita’s poem, “La vida nueva,” across the sky [fig. had developed painful white sores in her mouth that prevented her from closing her lips which can be a symptom of an advanced AIDS 29 Dhar, 100.

expandió el proceso de casting para incluir a otras artistas mujeres Shade Compositions incorpora modismos propios de la comunidad y femme. Por ejemplo, en Shade Compositions (2012), una obra representada en cada presentación de la obra, resaltando la movili- en video a partir del registro de una performance producida en dad que permite el lenguaje gestual y las complejidades que suscita SFMOMA, un elenco de diecisiete artistas mujeres y drag de color la celeridad de su transmisión en su circulación global. Al ampli- chasquean los dedos o los labios, revolean los ojos, y hacen otros ficar y repetir sonidos corporales y posturas físicas que quedarían ruidos y movimientos que ponen en primer plano la dimensión fuera de una traducción o transcripción, a la hora de fijar estas obras expresiva y el significado inestable de estos gestos no verbales. en una partitura o un texto, Shade Compositions encuentra asimis- Newsome dirige al grupo como si fuera un coro, y va remezclan- mo un espacio que desafía significados establecidos y posibilita una do esos sonidos con un joystick modificado, agregando reverb y agencia compartida. otros efectos digitales para crear una estructura orquestal basada En Speech Memory (2007), el film en 16 mm de Caroline Key, la en la repetición y en crescendos de intensidad sonora. Newsome artista se vale de su propia familia para estudiar de qué manera el declaró que estas obras forman parte de una investigación sobre el poder imperial se normaliza a través del control sobre el lenguaje habla coloquial de lxs negrxs, con particular interés por la forma [figs. 6, 7, 8, pp: 30 − 32]. La obra de Key gira en torno a su abuelo, en que la cultura popular se apropió de algunos de estos gestos y que nació sordomudo y se crió en medio de la ocupación japonesa de no de otros, que en gran medida siguen estigmatizados o incluso Corea, que tuvo lugar entre 1910 y 1945. Debido a las restricciones asociados a ciertos estereotipos de las mujeres negras. Como serie, impuestas por Japón al uso de la lengua coreana, el abuelo de Key

58 59 24, p: 92 − 93]. They spelled out a bold denunciation of the brutal reign of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, but they also created a heterolingual echo across cultural movements combating the rising tides of both fascism and neoliberalism. These were the voices of the “minorities of the world” to whom Zurita had dedicated his work.30 Another way one might think of this broadened scope of address is in terms of what might be called a Third World New York. New York City, in particular, has functioned as a cultural and geographic crossroads for the artists in After La vida nueva, who themselves move through the city at various moments, often propelled by the flows of global capital. The term “third world” is a Cold War concept used to denote

30 Logan, n.p.

tuvo que aprender en la escuela lengua de señas en japonés. Sin embargo, al volver a Corea siendo adulto, el abuelo de Key perdió su comunidad de hablantes de lengua de señas en japonés. En consecuencia, fue olvidando la lengua de señas en japonés, hasta perder la capacidad de comunicarse en cualquier lengua. La mayor parte del film está narrada en diálogos entre Key y su padre, hablados en coreano pero traducidos a subtítulos en inglés que aparecen sobre una pantalla negra. Estos momentos ponen en primer plano la acción de traducir, y se intercalan con imágenes sin traducción que muestran al padre de Key haciendo gestos en una rudimentaria lengua de señas en japonés. Dado que no estudió de manera formal la lengua de señas en japonés, el padre de Key aprendió los rudimentos básicos para comunicarse con su propio padre. Juntos se inventaron una lengua propia, por necesidad pero también como consecuencia de los brutales efectos del colonialismo y su tendencia a instaurar el monolingüismo en la construcción de una unidad nacional. Para lxs espectadorxs, el

60 61 belated capitalist development. Pejorative in its origins, it has since World was used broadly to refer to people of color, specifically com- come to connote a more radical project of decolonization associat- munities claiming diasporic belonging while identifying outside of ed with the Non-Aligned Movement whose roots lie in the 1955 Af- nationalistic categories. Citing Franz Fanon, Vijay Prashad writes, ro-Asian Bandung Conference.31 Largely taken up in the United States “the Third World was not a place, it was a project,” specifically one through the liberation movements of the 1970s and 1980s, Third of carving out new political imaginaries and solidarities, denoting a third way.32 31 In “A Message to the Grassroots” — a speech originally delivered at the 1964 Northern Grass Roots Leadership Conference in Detroit organized by Grace Lee Boggs — Malcom As an organizing framework among artists and activists, Third X states, “and once you study what happened at the Bandung conference… it actually World became a particularly powerful means of disrupting the serves as a model for the same procedure you and I can use to get our problems solved. At assumed universalism of Gay and Feminist movements, while at Bandung… there were dark nations from Africa and Asia… Despite their economic and political differences, they came together. All of them were black, brown, red, or yellow.” the same time creating a space to explore shared oppressions and Reprinted in Besenia Rodriguez, “‘Long Live Third World Unity! Long Live Internation- alism’: Huey P. Newton’s Revolutionary Intercommunalism,” Souls: A Critical Journal of 32 Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York, Black Politics, Culture, and Society 8, no. 3 (2016): 123. The New Press, 2007), xv.

abuelo de Key parece haber perdido la capacidad de hablar por sí mis- del aeropuerto de Flushing, en Queens, Nueva York. Al escribir en mo. Por ejemplo, en un momento desgarrador, el padre de la artista el aire, Zurita transformó la lectura de poesía, una actividad que recuerda cómo lo obligaron a hacer de intérprete en los tribunales lue- suele ser privada, en un rito comunitario que hizo posible una cone- go de que a su propio padre lo hubieran atacado en un parque en los xión potencial entre personas alejadas las unas de las otras [fig.9, p: Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, mediante el uso de primeros planos 36 − 37]. Desde la década de 1970, Zurita había participado en la neo- y una edición cuidadosa, Key obliga a lxs espectadorxs a leer los vanguardia chilena como artista y poeta, colaborando en happenings gestos y expresiones de las caras que aparecen en el film, que sirven y llevando a cabo intervenciones artísticas en espacios urbanos con de contrapunto a la autoridad de la palabra escrita o hablada. En el grupo Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA). Para una obra que se efecto, como señala el padre de la artista en un momento, a falta de llamó Ay, Sudamérica (1981), CADA contrató seis aviones para que una lengua común, es necesario “sentir” a la otra persona, es decir, bombardearan las calles de Santiago con cuatro mil panfletos que decodificar los gestos extralingüísticos y las formas expresivas que exigían la fusión entre el arte y la vida. Por un lado, la acción era comunican por fuera del lenguaje en su sentido convencional. un guiño al poema “Liberté”, de Paul Éluard, arrojado por la Royal Air Force británica sobre la Francia ocupada por los nazis en 1942. Pero también podía leerse una referencia más inmediata: el golpe de Parcialmente enterrado 1973, perpetrado por el ejército chileno con el apoyo de los Estados Unidos, que empezó con el bombardeo del Palacio de la Moneda — Un día de sol y sin nubes de junio de 1982, cinco aviones fuera la casa de gobierno — y acabó con la muerte del presidente demo- de servicio de la época de la Segunda Guerra Mundial despegaron crático Salvador Allende. Este acontecimiento no sólo señaló un

62 63 intimacies across transnational solidarities. As a term, Third World clearly connotes their deep identification with the global phenom- became a shorthand for gathering disparate groups of artists and ena that was decolonization.”33 Their manifesto, published in 1970 activists in collective struggles over the politics of representation, in Come Out! magazine and 1971 in Gay Flames, extends far be- labor, housing, and education rights. As a practice, however, these yond the isolated issue of sexuality, instead identifying anti-imperi- struggles were by no means harmonious or homogeneous, as demon- alism as central to a queer struggle [fig. 25, p: 97]. Titled, “What We strated by the struggles within and among the many collectives that Want, What We Believe,” it contains a sixteen-point platform that took up the project of Third Worldism and attempted to imagine makes demands of the judicial system, as well as for equitable and the world in and through difference. affordable housing, the abolition of capital punishment, an end to For instance, Third World Gay Revolution (T.W.G.R) was a short- lived organization that developed out of the Gay Liberation Front. 33 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New As José Muñoz notes, the group’s “usage of the term ‘Third World’ York: New York University Press, 2009), 29.

quiebre trascendental en la historia de Chile. También suele consi- del Norte (TLCAN) en enero de 1994, por ejemplo, liberalizó los mer- derárselo un hito que marca el surgimiento de un nuevo orden mun- cados entre Canadá, México y los Estados Unidos, abriendo las fron- dial que conocemos con el nombre de neoliberalismo, un proyecto teras al flujo de mercancías a través de cadenas de suministro que político-económico estrechamente vinculado con la globalización.11 ahora se extendían por toda Norteamérica. Sin embargo, NAFTA trajo Con el inicio de la globalización, el capital mundial ha modifica- consigo la implementación de políticas de control fronterizo como do y tensado las configuraciones espaciales y temporales del mun- la Operación Gatekeeper, que tenían como fin regular de manera es- do hasta hacer que lo próximo parezca simultáneo. Si bien la des- tricta el flujo de la fuerza de trabajo extranjera entre estos países. Es- regulación de tarifas y otras barreras al comercio ha permitido que tas políticas en conflicto — que simultáneamente abrieron y cerraron el capital y los bienes de consumo circulen por el mundo, las fron- las fronteras entre Estados Unidos y México — llevaron a la creación teras nacionales han permanecido cerradas al desplazamiento de los de una zona de frontera militarizada diseñada para disuadir a lxs cuerpos. La ratificación del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América migrantes indocumentadxs y forzarlos a aventurarse por “el camino más mortífero a los Estados Unidos: el desierto”.12 Usado como 11 Por ejemplo, David Harvey considera que el golpe de Estado de 1973 fue un banco de pruebas para la implantación de orden mundial neoliberal en que vivimos. “¿Cómo un arma, el desierto se vuelve más que un paisaje natural, y se se llegó al neoliberalismo y quiénes son los responsables?”, se pregunta, y prosigue: “la convierte en una herramienta de control fronterizo que estratégica- respuesta en países como Chile y Argentina en la década de 1970 fue tan simple como mente causa muertes y desapariciones. rápida y brutal: un golpe militar apoyado por las clases altas tradicionales (así como por el gobierno de los EE.UU.), seguido de la fuerte represión de todas las solidaridades entre los movimientos sindicales y sociales que habían amenazado su poder”. Vid. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 12 Sergio Delgado Moya, “A Theater of Displacement: Staging Activism, Poetry and Mi- 39. Hay edición castellana: Breve historia del neoliberalismo, trad. Ana Varela Mateos gration through a Transborder Immigrant Tool”, en Online Activism in Latin America, ed. (Madrid: Akal, 2007). Hilda Chacón (New York: Routledge, 2018), 34.

64 65 institutionalized religion, and more — all in the process of reimagining a revolutionary socialist society. That is to say, the manifesto’s sense of liberation is hardly homogeneous, but rather is articulated as a project with multiple components. The authors usage of “we” in making these demands articulates a collective voice that contains, as Muñoz writes, “multiple forms of belonging in difference” through which a “future society [is] being invoked and addressed at the same moment.”34 Moreover, the publication also contains a reprint of a

34 Muñoz, 20.

En 1993, casi diez años después de inscribir en el cielo de Queens su monumento a las minorías del mundo, Zurita volvió a usar la tierra de cuaderno al escribir “ni pena ni miedo” en el desierto de Atacama. La frase fue escrita con maquinaria industrial a una escala tan grande que sólo se la ve desde el cielo. Hasta el día de hoy, se dice que mantienen la instalación niñxs de un pueblo vecino, que munidxs de palas vuelven a darles forma a las letras en la arena que desfigura el viento. El desierto de Atacama es un paisaje inhóspito que también está cargado de un trauma colectivo. El lugar más seco del mundo con excepción de los polos, se extiende mil kilómetros a lo largo de la cordillera de los Andes. El régimen de Pinochet usó este medio ambiente hostil para emplazar campos de concentración donde se enterraba a lxs disidentes políticxs y fosas comunes donde se arrojaban los cuerpos de las personas “desaparecidas”. La historia política nunca tuvo confirmación oficial, puesto que las noticias del uso del desierto de Atacama por parte de Pinochet sólo se transmi- tieron de boca en boca, entre redes locales de comunicación que se contaban anécdotas compartidas de encontrar cadáveres en el desier- to. La excavación de Zurita del desierto de Atacama responde a esta

66 67 letter from Huey P. Newton to the Black Panther Party, originally the feminist art movement and out of a desire and a need to fore- intended to be an internal document only, speaking to the homo- ground women of color.35 By invitation, a guest editorial collective phobic dispositions of some revolutionaries and indexing a link be- 35 Produced from 1977 to 1993, HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics tween imperialism and homophobia. sought to counter the erasure of women artists from gallery and museum participa- Third World was also taken up as a means of organizing and tion, offering space for critical dialogue around feminist issues. Based in New York, the giving voice to artists who stood in opposition to the inherent impe- magazine was run by a core collective of writers, artists, editors, and designers. The publication’s mandate optimistically stated, “[a]s women, we are aware that historical- rialism and overwhelming whiteness of the Euro-American art world. ly the connections between our lives, our arts and our ideas have been suppressed… “Third World Women: The Politics of Being Other” (1979), a special Our view of feminism is one of process and change, and we feel that in the process of this dialogue we can foster a change in the meaning of art.” Yet despite this purported issue of the feminist art magazine HERESIES, developed both in re- orientation towards dialogue, the magazine was roundly criticized for its narrow focus sponse to the publication’s predominant focus on white women in on predominantly white, middle-class feminisms. Quoted in Lula Mae Blocton et al.,

historia de violencia política que a la vez le dio forma al paisaje y sin La barricada que forman las bolsas y el alambrado impide que lxs embargo sigue parcialmente enterrada o latente en el paisaje. visitantes bajen a la fosa, cercando el terreno para dar la sensación La artista Catalina Parra creó la obra Fosa común (1984) en las de una obra inconclusa, en construcción. Así, Fosa común abre un afueras de la galería Art Awareness, en Lexington, Nueva York. Cavó espacio para recordar y conmemorar esos cuerpos no identificados o a mano un hueco rectangular poco profundo y cubrió el perímetro desaparecidos, a la vez que se vuelve un lugar público de reunión y con bolsas de arpillera que rellenó con la tierra que había sacado de homenaje. [figs. 10, 11, pp: 40 − 41]. Esas bolsas amorfas pueden leerse como Parra volvió a repetir su proyecto dos veces más, primero en Porto imbunches, un motivo recurrente en la obra de la artista, que hace Alegre, Brasil, en 2001, y finalmente en el desierto de Atacama, en referencia a un personaje de la mitología araucana, al que se le han Chile, cerca de Calama, en 2005 [figs. 12, 13, 14, 15, pp: 46 − 47, cosido todos los agujeros del cuerpo con excepción de la boca.13 50 − 51].14 Con cada nueva ejecución, la escala de la obra fue crecien- Además de las bolsas, extendió cinco hileras de alambre de púa, que do, tanto en términos del tamaño del foso como del trabajo colectivo fijó al césped que rodeaba su intervención del terreno. La geometría que era necesario para presenciar y mantener la obra. En su última fija del rectángulo, que las líneas paralelas de los alambrados resalta- versión en Chile, Parra usó una excavadora Caterpillar. Se rumorea ban aún más, crea una anomalía en un paisaje por otra parte natural, que el régimen de Pinochet usó esa misma excavadora para abrir las a la vez que evoca la imagen de una tumba recientemente excavada. fosas comunes en el desierto de Atacama cuando se dieron cuenta de que los cadáveres que estaban arrojando en la zona no se descom- 13 Sophie Halart lleva a cabo un análisis detallado del imbunche en la obra de Parra, y afirma que su uso de estas figuras cosidas, así como de otras técnicas de costura que ponían, sino que la extrema aridez de las grandes salinas más bien utiliza en otras obras, es un gesto de reparación que deja las heridas abiertas y visibles, rechazando así la posibilidad de pasar página en la historia, y criticando toda amnesia cultural. Vid. Sophie Halart, “Epidermal Cartographies: Skin as Map in Chilean Art 14 En estas reiteraciones, se eliminó la palabra “común” del título, y la obra empezó a (1979 – 1994)”, Oxford Art Journal 42, nro. 3, (diciembre de 2019): 283 – 305. llamarse simplemente FOSA.

68 69 70 71 was formed that included Lula Mae Blocton, Yvonne Flowers, Val- the power-holding class, and we have concerns other than those erie Harris, Zarina Hashmi, Virginia Jaramillo, Dawn Russell, and of white feminists, white artists and men.36 Naeemah Shabazz. As stated in their co-authored opening statement, The issue aimed to unite and amplify the demands of women The phrase Third World has its roots in the post-World War II eco- artists of color in order to, “break the isolation of racial/sexual to- nomic policies of the United Nations, but today it is a euphemism. kenism experienced in college, on the job, in the women’s move- We use it knowing it implies people of color, non-white and, most ment, and in the ‘art world.’”37 The editorial statement that opens of all, “other.” Third World women are other than the majority and the issue provides a heartfelt account that expresses the difficulties

36 Blocton et al., 1. eds., “Third World Women: The Politics of Being Other,” a special issue of HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics 2, no. 4, (1979), front matter. 37 Ibid.

los preservaba. De esta manera, el uso de Parra de la Caterpillar hace truido encima de antiguos cementerios de colonxs. Allí calcó las referencia a esta atrocidad, que sin embargo sólo se conoce por el placas que encontraba. De manera elocuente, las bolsas no contienen intercambio comunitario de información inverificable.15 A falta de un registro de la historia colonial, sino que reproducen una variedad todo registro oficial de los esfuerzos que se hicieron por tapar esta de íconos y fragmentos de textos, incluyendo carteles reconocibles historia de violencia, Parra se apropia del rumor. Hasta el día de hoy, de empresas multinacionales como Chase y McDonald’s. Permanent un equipo local de voluntarixs sigue ayudando a mantener la obra, Title implica a estas empresas en un proyecto de asentamiento colo- agregando una dimensión colectiva más profunda a su posteridad. nial que continúa hasta el presente. Sin embargo, el proceso técnico Mientras que la obra de Parra señala un uso de la tierra para ocul- de Michelson, que recuerda la tradición del calco de lápidas, en sí tar atrocidades cometidas por el régimen de Pinochet, el trabajo de misma una parte importante de la labor archivística y de la ciencia Alan Michelson se vale de la tierra para señalar las formas de violen- genealógica, permite esclarecer otros aspectos de la obra. La genea- cia y latrocinio colonial perpetradas por lxs europexs al asentarse en logía de la riqueza que se asocia con lxs descendientes de lxs colonos Manhattan. En la instalación Permanent Title (1993), Michelson es- coincide ciertamente con las grandes corporaciones y familias aris- tudia la geografía subterránea del Bajo Manhattan [fig. 16, p: 61]. La tocráticas cuyos emblemas aparecen en Permanent Title. Pero el calco obra se compone de una serie de calcos de varios tamaños sobre bol- de lápidas es asimismo una práctica polémica, puesto que contribuye sas de muselina encerada que hacen referencia a las mortajas de la a la erosión de la lápida que se pretende registrar. Al transmutar es- época colonial. Para producir estas obras, Michelson visitó parques, tas marcas emblemáticas, símbolos del poder corporativo estadoun- edificios y aceras por todo el Bajo Manhattan que se hubieran cons- idense, en insignias de muerte, Permanent Title también alude a la posibilidad de destruirlas y borrarlas. 15 Esta excavadora en particular es un símbolo de los flujos del capital global, porque Caterpillar también le vendió maquinaria al gobierno israelí, que la utilizó para demoler Permanent Title (1993) no sólo enfatiza la relación entre el capi- casas de población palestina en la franja de Gaza. talismo estadounidense y el genocidio de los pueblos originarios,

72 73 of working together as a collective even though they shared some Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by overlapping oppressions, speaking to the challenges they had with Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, made “the presence of US the HERESIES collective but also celebrating the opportunity this third world feminism impossible to ignore.”38 It also conveyed a work presented to exchange ideas and articulate a collective identity much broader array of identities, as the women who contributed as Third World women artists. Bringing together forty-four contrib- to the collection not only labeled themselves as Third World but utors in total, the issue holds space for the differences and speci- also described themselves within a multiplicity of racial identities, ficities of individuals under a shared moniker presented through 38 Chela Sandoval, “U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Opposition- writing, poetry, and art. al Consciousness in the Postmodern World” in Geographic Thought, eds. George Hender- The publication in 1981of the feminist anthology, This Bridge son and Marvin Waterstone (New York: Routledge, 2009), 339.

sino que al estudiar específicamente los antiguos cementerios de y, a la inversa, cómo podían esperar que lxs indígenxs abandonaran lxs colonxs, Michelson también alude a las ideas opuestas que a lxs suyxs.17 Así, la obra afirma la desposesión forzada de los pueblos lxs colonxs y las comunidades indígenas tenían de la propiedad originarios, así como la desconcertante desposesión que lxs colonxs privada y de la herencia. Lxs colonxs consideraban la tierra como se impusieron a sí mismxs. Al sostener dos posiciones encontradas, una mercancía, transformándola en un objeto que podía ser com- la obra de Michelson afirma la presencia de múltiples derechos de prado y vendido, a diferencia de lxs indígenas, cuyas relaciones propiedad de la tierra, señalando cómo se superpuso la geografía con la tierra estaban basadas en vínculos comunitarios y ancestra- capitalista y la de lxs colonxs a un paisaje ya instituido y moldeado les. Los colonizadores perpetraron un robo de las tierras indígenas por la presencia indígena. Así, la de Michelson podría inscribirse bajo la premisa de su transformación legal en propiedad. Robert como una obra de land art, que sin embargo no reclama propiedad Nichols reconstruye el argumento circular debajo de la lógica de la sobre la tierra, sino que establece una alianza con la ella que rechaza, desposesión; cuya consecuencia era que “eras indígena o eras hacen- e incluso borra, los símbolos del poder y la riqueza colonial que mar- dadx”.16 El título de la obra de Michelson, que refiere al documento can hoy en día el medio ambiente edificado.Permanent Title piensa jurídico que otorga derechos de propiedad sobre la tierra, irónica- con la tierra y más allá de su posesión presente, a la vez que rechaza mente afirma la disolución de los lazos comunitarios tanto en las toda reivindicación de la posibilidad de un retorno bucólico a un comunidades indígenas como en las de lxs colonxs, a partir de la momento anterior a que el Bajo Manhattan se viera transformado de privatización capitalista de la propiedad. En una conversación con manera irrevocable por el asentamiento de lxs colonxs y la indus- lxs curadorxs, Michelson comenta que lxs pobladorxs originarios trialización.18 Desde 1998, el grupo de artistas activistas Electronic no entendían cómo lxs colonxs podían abandonar a sus ancestrxs 17 Alan Michelson, en conversación con lxs autorxs, 3 de junio de 2020. 18 Pueden encontrarse resonancias entre la lucha de artistas y activistas contra el colo- 16 Robert Nichols, “Theft is Property! The Recursive Logic of Dispossession”, Political nialismo de lxs colonxs en los Estados Unidos y las manifestaciones en Santiago de Chile Theory 46, nro. 1 (2018): 19. que levantan la bandera del pueblo mapuche, que ha sido sistemáticamente desposeído,

76 77 including the encompassing concept, “women of color.”39 The 1988 exhibition Autobiography: In Her Own Image, also demonstrates the way in which artists were thinking of themselves as Third World artists against the dominant First World art world. The exhibition was curated by Howardena Pindell at INTAR Gallery and featured the work of twenty women of color artists — including Theresa Hak

39 Sandoval, 339.

Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab (EDT) viene desarrollando su Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT) en relación con la frontera entre Tijuana y San Diego [figs. 17, 18, 19, pp: 66, 70 − 71]. El grupo encua- dra su trabajo en los “medios tácticos”, puesto que TBT es un programa de geolocalización por GPS distribuido en teléfonos celulares modificados que ayudan a quienes cruzan la frontera a encontrar reservas de agua escondidas por organizaciones sin fines de lucro y de activistas comunitarixs (como Border Angels y Water Station) por el camino mortalmente árido a través del desierto de Anza-Bor- rego. TBT está concebida como una manera económica de dis- tribuir disimuladamente información vital para lxs migrantes. Más que un mapa, el software utiliza un GPS unidireccional que blo- quea la transmisión de geolocalización que suelen enviar los celulares y que, en este caso, podría revelar la posición de (y por ende

criminalizado y borrado del patrimonio nacional chileno. En efecto, en la caída tan cele- brada del régimen de Pinochet, también se podría ubicar un nuevo silenciamiento de una historia mucho más larga de violencia contra las poblaciones indígenas. Amelia Bande, por ejemplo, cuenta que “el drama de la dictadura fue tan enorme que la llegada de la democracia dio una especie de esperanza que fue el silenciamiento de una crisis que nunca se acabó”. Amelia Bande en conversación con Aimé Iglesias Lukin, directora y curadora principal de la Americas Society, “In The Studio: Amelia Bande”, conversación por Instagram Live, 22 de mayo de 2020. Video archivado en: https://www.as-coa.org/ events/studio-amelia-bande.

78 79 Kyung Cha, Ana Mendieta, Yong Soon Min, and Kay Walkingstick — artists’ various ancestors — but also as an homage to the design of who were each asked to create a visual statement in relation to their Tricontinental, a multilingual and radical-leftist magazine produced experience of the underrepresentation of their self-identified gender by the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and race. A catalog produced in conjunction with the exhibition fea- and Latin America (OPSAAL). That is to say, the exhibition catalog tures a cover image with the title (Autobiography: In Her Own Image) makes the connection to the legacy of Third World activism explicit. written in seven different languages to reflect the languages of the After La vida nueva takes the Third World as an expansive

poner en peligro a) quienes buscan rutas extraestatales entre México investigación contra EDT impulsada por tres congresistas republica- y los Estados Unidos. Además, los teléfonos reproducen archivos nos, la Oficina de Delitos Cibernéticos del FBI, y la Universidad de de audio con poemas escritos por integrantes de EDT que reflexionan California en San Diego (UCSD), donde Ricardo Domínguez (cofun- desde la lírica sobre el desierto, además de transmitir conocimientos dador, junto con Brett Stalbaum, de EDT) sigue siendo profesor aso- ancestrales.19 A la vez sistema poético y programa de navegación, ciado en el departamento de artes visuales. Se acusó a EDT de des- TBT ofrece un mapa del desierto de Anza-Borrego que contra- viar fondos públicos de UCSD para promover la inmigración ilegal.21 rresta la cartografía del estado y elude las prácticas jurídicas de En la actualidad, TBT circula como un objeto de arte, y se lo suele los gobiernos que ejercen el control del territorio y de los movi- presentar acompañado de un libro bilingüe de poemas, en castella- mientos de los cuerpos en su jurisdicción.20 La obra posiciona las no y en inglés. Estos dos componentes invitan a lxs espectadorxs a prácticas artísticas como una necesidad vital de quienes cruzan participar en un relato alternativo de la frontera — que, como afirma la frontera. Apter, también es una zona de traducción, de lucha por el senti- Aunque originalmente TBT pretendía ser un dispositivo funcio- do — , que alude a un imaginario decolonial en que la migración nal, el proyecto de EDT tuvo tanta repercusión mediática que dis- indocumentada a través de las fronteras no sea criminalizada. TBT tribuir la tecnología se volvió imposible. En 2010, comenzó una se vale del espacio virtual para reconfigurar el lugar material (o el territorio), al punto incluso de postular el uso del primero como 19 EDT quería que quienes cruzaran la frontera encendieran sus teléfonos sólo en casos el lugar de una crítica de la propiedad sobre la tierra.22 Es decir, el de extrema necesidad debido a la duración limitada de la batería. Sin embargo, la doble función — poesía y navegación por GPS — sugiere que, para quienes cruzan la frontera, el alimento que les ofrece el arte puede ser una necesidad tan vital como el agua en el des- 21 En 2019, unxs activistas que trabajaban con No More Deaths, un grupo que deja ierto. Al insistir en la inseparabilidad del arte y las necesidades vitales básicas, TBT pro- agua y otros suministros básicos en los corredores por donde lxs migrantes cruzan la blematiza la división en el pensamiento occidental (a partir de la Ilustración) entre el frontera, fueron llevadxs a juicio, acusadxs de delitos federales que incluían conducir disfrute del arte y la necesidad del trabajo manual, que hace de ese disfrute un lujo reser- vehículos en áreas silvestres y “abandono de propiedad”. Para más información sobre vado a la burguesía y negado a la clase trabajadora. las amenazas recibidas por EDT y TBT, vid. Hrag Vartanian, “Art Professor Under Fire for Artistic Protests” Hyperallergic (8 de abril de 2010): https://hyperallergic.com/5018/ 20 Según Zurita, una manera de eludir la censura en Chile era decir que los proyectos ricardo-dominguez-under-fire/. eran sobre “ecología” o “cibernética”. Las autoridades, que por lo general no estaban fa- miliarizados con esos términos, a menudo ignoraban esos proyectos. Raúl Zurita, conver- 22 Alan Michelson también usó realidad aumentada para impugnar reclamos de pro- sación el autor, 7 de enero de 2020. piedad de tierras, específicamente en el Bajo Manhattan. En su muestra de 2019 en el

80 81 framework and worlding practice — in line with concepts such as totalizing fantasies and universalisms which attempt to characterize Édouard Glissant’s “tout-monde,” Jean-Luc Nancy’s “mondialisa- the global capitalist order. We look to articulations of Third World tion,” and Gayatri Spivak’s “planetarity”40 — and as a resistance to the solidarity in and around New York City to question the efficacy of this

40 See Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, versity of New York Press, 2007); and Gayatri Spivak, Death of a Discipline, (New York: 1997); Jean-Luc Nancy, The Creation of the World or Globalization (Albany: State Uni- Columbia University Press, 2003).

sitio de la obra — especialmente en términos de las instalaciones de aeropuerto de Flushing, en Queens, Nueva York [fig. 20, p: 74 − 75]. sitio específico definidas por el artista Robert Smithson — no es la Tiempo después, ese mismo año, Tanam Press publicó Dictée (1982), “realidad física en crudo — la tierra o el suelo”, ni la representación de Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, un libro muy abarcador que tiene como de ese sitio en el espacio de la galería (lo que Smithson llama “no si- punto de partida la ocupación japonesa de Corea (1910 – 1945). Con tio” o “abstracción”), sino que existe en un lugar intermedio.23 TBT una mezcla de coreano, inglés y francés, el uso de la lengua en Dictée señala la abstracción inherente al proceso del trazado de mapas, cuestiona la idea del “idioma materno”, y rechaza el uso de la lengua cartografiando un amplio imaginario migratorio que rechaza las como un herramienta cultural y política para construir ideas de la geografías neoliberales excluyentes.24 nación, que a menudo silencian formas disidentes de estar y hablar en el mundo. Para Cha, volver a visitar esas historias y esos relatos es más un trabajo reparador que de restauración. Como escribe Vivir al margen la autora:

Un día de sol y sin nubes de junio de 1982, cinco aviones fuera de ¿Por qué resucitarlo todo ahora? Del pasado. La historia, la vie- servicio de la época de la Segunda Guerra Mundial despegaron del ja herida. Los sentimientos del pasado otra vez repetidos. Confe- sar revivir la misma locura. Nombrarlo ahora para no repetir la historia en el olvido. Extraer cada fragmento de la palabra de la Whitney, Michelson presentó Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field) (2019), una obra que se visualizaba por medio de una aplicación descargada en los celulares de lxs visitantes, que imagen otra palabra otra imagen la respuesta que no repetirá la utilizaba realidad aumentada para representar el lobby del museo como un campo sem- historia en el olvido.25 brado de tabaco, otra clase de relicario de valor cultural. 23 Robert Smithson. “Earth: Symposium at White Museum, Cornell University, 1970”, El interés de Cha por la historia y la memoria queda de manifiesto en The Writings of Robert Smithson: Essays with Illustrations, editado por Nancy Holt (Nueva York: New York University Press, 1970), 160. en los preparativos para su película White Dust from Mongolia, que 24 Para leer más sobre la crítica de TBT a los marcos conceptuales para entender la Cha se proponía filmar al volver a Corea en 1980 con su hermano. frontera, tanto desde la derecha como desde la izquierda, vid. Alison Reed, “Queer Pro- La película, que sería la primera propiamente narrativa de la autora, visionality: Mapping the Generative Failures of the Transborder Immigrant Tool”, Lateral: Journal of the Cultural Studies Association 4 (2015). Visitado 10 Marzo, 2020: csalateral. org/issue/4/queer-provisionality-mapping-the-generative/. 25 Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictée (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 33.

82 83 proposition for a “third way” in the present, and also to speculate on the futurity of this project of transnational and anticolonial alliances. Third World methodology is also part of the logic of After La

sigue a una protagonista con amnesia que poco a poco recupera la memoria. Sin embargo, los meticulosos planes de Cha se vieron in- terrumpidos por el levantamiento de Gwangju (una manifestación estudiantil a favor de la democracia, contra el ejército surcoreano) que empezó el 18 de mayo de 1980. Al no poder seguir filmando, Cha abandonó la película y se dedicó de lleno a un libro. La artista Cici Wu asistió a una de las pocas proyecciones de la película inconclusa de Cha en el Museum of Art and Design de Nue- va York en 1917, munida de un prototipo de su proyecto Foreign Object #1 Fluffy Light, un dispositivo portátil que traduce ondas luminosas a código binario, que a su vez queda grabado en una tarjeta SD. Capturando disimuladamente los fragmentos del film de Cha, y traduciéndolos a lenguaje informático, Wu creó una instalación titulada Upon Leaving the White Dust (2018). Para esta obra, la artista dispuso en el suelo objetos de cerámica inspirados en el storyboard de Cha y proyectó en la pared un video digital que volvía a traducir el código binario a ondas luminosas. La imagen en movimiento que esa operación da como resultado es una serie de patrones abs- tractos, parpadeantes. El acto de piratear el film de Cha se convierte también en una forma de abstracción, que puede entenderse como el intento de extraer la obra inconclusa de Cha, de recuperar una imagen perdida para la historia. Además, al no reproducir con fide- lidad los fragmentos de la película de Cha, la obra de Wu cuestiona la necesidad de la imagen en su modalidad documental, en su visibilización escoptofílica de aquello que representa. Las imágenes abstractas reflexionan sobre la (im)posibilidad de la transmisión y la objetividad histórica. Ni Cha ni Wu son capaces de ver o producir

84 85 vida nueva, a project that, in the process of presenting a group of also illustrates collective ways of being and the possible worlds they artists and articulating the fabric of their relations with one another, generate, however briefly.

las imágenes que desean, y sus respectivos proyectos existen en el ción de Green concluye: “la protesta resultaba más convincente”. La plano de lo irrealizado. banda sonora del video — “Them Changes”, el single de Buddy Miles Wu ha presentado una serie de versiones de Foreign Object, jugan- de 1970 — refuerza esta idea, y evoca el clima de protesta e incon- do con las dimensiones, la escala, la forma y la materialidad del dis- formismo de fines de la década de 1969 y comienzos de la de 1970. positivo. Si bien la máquina que utilizó durante la proyección de Cha Partially Buried Continued retoma estos cruces entre arte y política, es una discreta cajita de metal, Foreign Object #1 Fluffy Light (2018) historia personal e historia pública, y se enfoca en el padre de Green, [fig. 21, p: 79] es una reinterpretación escultórica de ese dispositivo en particular en su experiencia como oficial del ejército estadouni- para su exhibición. Fluffy Light es una escultura de vidrio opalescen- dense en la guerra de Corea. Green hace un montaje con polaroids te vagamente biomórfica, con lectores fotosensitivos y una tarjeta SD tomadas por su padre durante la guerra, reflexiones sobreDictée de que funciona en la plataforma Arduino. Cuando se activa, se encien- Cha, e imágenes filmadas por la propia Green durante una visita de de una luz roja que indica que está grabando. Sobre el apoyabrazos Corea del Sur por un encargo. Al igual que Cha, Green juega con el de una butaca de cine reciclada, la obra despliega sus cualidades contraste entre la oralidad y la escritura en la interacción entre los hápticas, a la vez que se vuelve un aparato de vigilancia. videos. Partially Buried se narra por medio de historias orales y en- La complejidad de los retornos históricos se pone de primer pla- trevistas que conectan puntos de referencia dispares. En contraste, no en Partially Buried (1996) y Partially Buried Continued (1997), en Partially Buried Continued aparecen letras en color violeta que de Renée Green, dos obras que forman parte de un tríptico que teje atraviesan la pantalla en sentido horizontal. Las citas de Smithson un collage intertextual entre la historia familiar de la artista, acon- y Cha, tomadas de la historia del arte, junto con la genealogía im- tecimientos políticos de los Estados Unidos y arte estadounidense provisada que Green construye con los recuerdos de su padre, son [fig.22, p: 84]. En Partially Buried, Green vuelve a una de las obras de un vehículo fundamental para situar a la artista en una continuidad land art de Robert Smithson, Partially Buried Woodshed, un proyecto histórica pero no lineal. ejecutado en Kent State University en el invierno de 1970, y que Al igual que Green, la artista de performance india Rummana Hus- sin proponérselo se volvió un símbolo de la masacre de Kent State sain también se ocupa en su obra de la simultaneidad de la historia (que tuvo lugar ese mismo año) cuando unx estudiante pintó “May personal y la pública, relacionándose con estos relatos a partir de la 4 Kent 70” (“4 de mayo Kent 70”) en el dintel del cobertizo. El video actualización de tradiciones culturales y religiosas de la India. En de Green pone en relación a la obra de land art de Smithson con la su performance Living on the Margins (1995), Hussain se calza unos experiencia de su madre como estudiante de Kent State durante esa ghungroos, tobilleras con cascabeles que se colocan en los pies en misma época. Reflexionando con nostalgia sobre las historias para- la danza clásica de la India, que repiquetean a medida que ella ca- lelas de las protestas radicalizadas y el arte experimental, la narra- mina lentamente alrededor del perímetro de un patio al aire libre,

86 87 con una serie de objetos en la mano, como una papaya cortada a la mitad o la cabeza de una aspiradora [fig. 23, p: 88]. De tanto en tan- to, se detiene y abre grande la boca, como si fuera a gritar, pero en silencio. La papaya cortada a la mitad, que aparece en varias de sus obras, recuerda el gesto de la boca abierta, y permite trazar analogías con los orificios del cuerpo. La cabeza de la aspiradora, que pasa por el césped, es una clara referencia al trabajo doméstico. Estos gestos solemnes se repiten hasta que al fin se invita al público a esparcir por el suelo índigo y gheru, un polvo ocre rojizo, dos elementos que tradicionalmente tienen usos religiosos, medicinales y estéticos. Reconocida como la primera artista de performance de la India, Hussain empezó a practicar esta forma de arte como respuesta a los acontecimientos que tuvieron lugar a partir de la demolición de la mezquita de Babri Masjid, en 1992. En la década de 1990, la India atra- vesaba un período de liberalización económica, acompañada por la intensificación de la violencia comunalista apoyada por el gobierno nacionalista hindú. La mezquita de Babri Masjid se convirtió en un lugar de disputa, puesto que se la consideraba el lugar de nacimien- to de la deidad hindú Rama. Tras años de tensiones, una coalición de grupos nacionalistas hinduista llevó adelante una campaña para construir un templo hinduista en su lugar. La destrucción de la mezquita fue el clímax de una ola de violencia organizada contra musulmanes en la India que Ram Rahman comparó con los acontecimientos del 11 de Septiembre en Estados Unidos.26 Durante este pe- ríodo, Hussain quitó de su casa en Mumbai la placa con su nombre,

26 Rahman observó “Tal como la demolición de la mezquita cambió la India para siem- pre, el 11 de septiembre cambió a Estados Unidos”. Ram Rahman, “The day America changed forever”, The Hindu (10 de septiembre de 2011). Visitado el 10 de junio de 2020. https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/the-day-america-changed-forever/arti- cle2441531.ece

88 89 claramente musulmán, y escapó con su familia, para volver recién Nueva York en jerga tercermundista con el fin de los pogroms.27 Se unió al colectivo Sahmat, una organi- zación de Nueva Delhi (bautizada en homenaje al difunto dramaturgo Un día de sol y sin nubes de junio de 1982, cinco aviones fuera de Safdar Hashmi) dedicada a producir intervenciones artísticas contra servicio de la época de la Segunda Guerra Mundial despegaron del el comunalismo.28 La performance le ofrecía a la artista un medio aeropuerto de Flushing, en Queens, Nueva York [fig. 24, p: 92 − 93]. para lidiar con los rápidos cambios en la sociedad india y un podero- Trazaron en el cielo una valiente denuncia contra el brutal régimen so vehículo para preguntarse por la identidad y la pertenencia social, del dictador chileno Augusto Pinochet, pero también produjeron cuestiones que cobraron urgencia para ella luego de la demolición de una resonancia heterolingüe entre diversos movimientos culturales la mezquita. que combatían el avance del fascismo y el neoliberalismo. Eran las En Living on the Margins, el gesto de la boca abierta trasciende voces de las “minorías del mundo”, a las que Zurita les había dedi- el contexto local de la India, y alude a la lucha de las mujeres para cado su obra.30 Otra manera de pensar esta ampliación de los már- que se deje de silenciar su papel en la reproducción social de la so- genes de enunciación sería en términos de lo que podríamos llamar ciedad, a la vez que representa y critica la asfixia de ese rol. Así, el una Nueva York tercermundista. Nueva York funcionó como un lugar gesto de la boca abierta recuerda las explícitas imágenes de Mouth to donde se cruzaron los caminos culturales y geográficos de lxs artistas Mouth. Sin embargo, constituye además una referencia más inmedia- de After La vida nueva, que pasaron por la ciudad en distintos mo- ta a la vida de Hussain. Living on the Margins surgió luego del descu- mentos, a menudo impulsadxs por los flujos del capital global. brimiento por parte de la artista de que su empleada doméstica había El término “tercer mundo” es un concepto de la Guerra Fría que contraído VIH, algo de lo que se dio cuenta por las dolorosas llagas refiere a un desarrollo capitalista tardío. Peyorativo en sus orígenes, blancas en la boca que le impedían cerrar la boca, lo cual puede ser en los últimos tiempos ha pasado a designar un proyecto descolo- un síntoma de una infección avanzada por VIH.29 Por miedo a perder nizador más radical, que se asocia con el Movimiento de Países No su medio de vida, la empleada no le reveló su enfermedad a Hussain. Alineados, cuyas raíces se remontan a la Conferencia de Bandung La performance de Hussain da cuenta de las diversas dimensiones de de 1995.31 En gran medida un estandarte de los movimientos de lo doméstico, en relación con la enfermedad, la clase y la violencia estatal, para criticar y rechazar las ideas establecidas de femineidad 30 Logan, n.p. en la India. 31 En “Un mensaje a las bases” — un discurso pronunciado en la Northern Grass Roots Leadership Conference de Detroit de 1964, organizada por Grace Lee Boggs — Malcolm X 27 Jyoti Dhar, “Rummana Hussain: Prescient Provocateur”, Art Asia Pacific (Septiembre/ afirma, “y cuando se estudia lo que pasó en la conferencia de Bandung… de hecho sirve Octubre 2014), 99. de modelo para lo que ustedes y yo podemos hacer para resolver nuestros problemas. En Bandung… había países de tez oscura de África y de Asia… a pesar de sus diferencias 28 Una historia de Sahmat y sus actividades puede encontrarse en Moss, Jessica y Ram políticas y económicas, se pusieron se acuerdo. Eran negros, marrones, rojos o amarillos”. Rahman. The Sahmat Collective: Art and Activism in India since 1989. Chicago: (The Incluido en Besenia Rodriguez, “Long Live Third World Unity! Long Live International- Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 2013). ism!’: Huey P. Newton’s Revolutionary Intercommunalism”, Souls: A Critical Journal of 29 Dhar, 100. Black Politics, Culture, and Society 8, nro. 3 (2016): 123.

90 91 liberación de las décadas de 1970 y 1980, la expresión tercer mundo dica al antiimperialismo un papel central en las luchas queer [fig. se usó por lo general para referirse a personas de color, específica- 25, p: 97]. Titulado “What We Want, What We Believe” [“Lo que mente a comunidades diaspóricas que no se identificaban con catego- queremos, lo que creemos”], es una plataforma de dieciséis puntos: rías nacionalistas. Escribe Vijay Pradesh, citando a Franz Fanon: “el críticas al sistema judicial, reclamos de vivienda social equitativa, tercer mundo no era un lugar, era un proyecto”, específicamente el la abolición de la pena de muerte, el fin de la religión instituciona- proyecto de crear nuevos imaginarios y solidaridades políticas, una lizada, entre otras demandas y reivindicaciones, todo en el marco de tercera vía.32 una sociedad socialista revolucionaria. Es decir, la idea de liberación Como marco de organización para artistas y activistas, el tercer que se desprende del manifiesto está lejos de ser homogénea, y más mundo se convirtió en un medio muy poderoso para cuestionar el bien se articula en un proyecto con múltiples componentes. El uso supuesto universalismo de los movimientos gay y feminista, y a la del “nosotrxs” por parte de lxs autores en sus demandas articula una vez en un espacio para explorar opresiones e intimidades comparti- voz colectiva que incluye, en palabras de Muñoz, “múltiples formas das a partir de solidaridades transnacionales. Como expresión, “ter- de pertenecer en diferencia”, a través de las cuales “a la vez se exige cer mundo” se usó para agrupar a artistas y activistas muy diversxs una nueva sociedad y se le habla”.34 Además, la publicación también en luchas políticas colectivas, por sus derechos a la representación, contiene una reimpresión de una carta de Huey P. Newton a los Pan- el trabajo, la vivienda y la educación. Como práctica, sin embargo, teras Negras, que en su momento fue un documento interno, y que estas luchas no fueron en modo alguno armónicas ni homogéneas, habla de la homofobia de algunos revolucionarios, estableciendo un como lo demuestran las rencillas, tanto internas como entre los nu- vínculo entre imperialismo y homofobia. merosos colectivos que levantaron las banderas del tercermundismo El concepto de “tercer mundo” también se usó para organizar y y trataron de imaginar un mundo diferente y a partir de la diferencia. darles voz a artistas que se oponían al imperialismo inherente y al Por ejemplo, Third World Gay Revolution (TWGR) fue una efímera carácter abrumadoramente blanco del mundo del arte en Europa y organización que surgió del Gay Liberation Front. Como señala José los Estados Unidos. “Third World Women: The Politics of Being Muñoz, “el uso de la expresión ‘tercer mundo’ por parte del grupo Other” (1979), una edición especial de la revista de arte feminista afirma claramente su profunda identificación con el fenómeno a -es HERESIES, surgió en respuesta a la atención casi exclusiva que la cala mundial que fue la descolonización”.33 El manifiesto, publicado revista les dedicaba a artistas blancas del movimiento feminista, así en 1970 en la revista Come Out! y en 1971 en Gay Flames, va mucho como del deseo y la necesidad de darles mayor protagonismo a las más allá de la cuestión puntual de la sexualidad, e incluso le adju- mujeres de color.35 Se formó por invitación un colectivo de editoras

34 Muñoz, 20. 32 Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (Nueva 35 Producida de 1977 a 1993, HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics se York, The New Press, 2007), xv. proponía combatir la invisibilización de las artistas mujeres en las galerías y los mu- 33 José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (Nueva seos, abriendo un espacio para el diálogo crítico acerca de cuestiones feministas. Instala- York: New York University Press, 2009), 29. Hay edición castellana: Utopía queer. El da en Nueva York, dirigía la revista un colectivo estable de escritoras, artistas, editoras y entonces y allí de la futuridad antinormativa, trad. Patricio Orellana (Buenos Aires: Caja diseñadoras. El texto preliminar de la publicación afirmaba con optimismo: “como mu- Negra, 2020). jeres, somos conscientes de que históricamente se han roto las conexiones entre nuestras

94 95 invitadas, que incluía a Lula Mae Blocton, Yvonne Flowers, Valerie Harris, Zarina Hashmi, Virginia Jaramillo, Dawn Russell y Naeemah Shabazz. Como dice la declaración inicial, de autoría grupal:

La expresión “tercer mundo” tiene raíces en las políticas econó- micas de las Naciones Unidas tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, pero hoy en día es un eufemismo. La usamos sabiendo que se refiere a gente de color, que no es blanca, y sobre todo “diferente”. Las mujeres del tercer mundo son diferentes de la mayoría y de la clase que detenta el poder, y no sólo nos preocupan las feministas blancas, lxs artistas blancxs y los hombres.36

Ese número especial de la revista buscaba unir y amplificar las demandas de las mujeres artistas de color para “romper el aislamiento producido por la inclusión simbólica que vivimos en la universidad, en el trabajo, en el movimiento feminista y en el ‘mundo del arte’”.37 El editorial que da inicio al número es un documento muy sentido que expresa las dificultades de trabajar juntas como colectivo a pesar de que compartían algunas opresiones, así como los desafíos que planteaba el colectivo HERESIES, pero también celebra la oportuni- dad de intercambiar ideas y articular una identidad colectiva como mujeres artistas tercermundistas. Al reunir a cuarenta y cuatro invitadas en total, la edición especial le hace lugar a las diferencias y especificidades de cada una, por medio de la escritura, la poesía y el arte y bajo un nombre común.

vidas, nuestro arte y nuestras ideas… Vemos el feminismo desde el proceso y el cambio, y creemos que en el proceso de este diálogo podemos fomentar un cambio en el sentido del arte”. A pesar de esta presunta orientación al diálogo, la revista recibió duras críticas por enfocarse sobre todo en feminismos blancos y de clase media. Citado en Lula Mae Blocton, et al., editoras, “Third World Women: The Politics of Being Other”, HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics 2, no. 4, (1979), texto preliminar. 36 Blocton et al., 1. 37 Blocton et al., 1.

96 97 La publicación de la antología feminista This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, compilada por Cherrie Moraga y Gloria Anzaldúa en 1981, “volvió imposible de ignorar la presencia del feminismo tercermundista en los Estados Unidos”.38 También incluía una gama mucho más amplia de identidades, puesto que las mujeres antologadas no sólo se consideraban tercermundistas, sino que además asumían una gran variedad de identidades raciales, incluyendo a las “mujeres de color”,39 un concepto muy general. La muestra Autobiography: In Her Own Image, de 1988, también ilustra cómo las artistas se veían a sí mismas como artistas tercermundistas, oponiéndose al mundillo dominante del arte del primer mundo. La exhibición fue curada por Howardena Pindell y tuvo lugar en la galería INTAR. Reunía obras de veinte artistas mujeres de color, incluyendo a Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Yong Soon Min y Kav Walkingstick, a cada una de las cuales se les pidió que crearan una declaración visual en relación con la experiencia de falta de rep- resentación de sus identidades autopercibidas de género y de raza. En la imagen de tapa del catálogo, producido en conjunto con la muestra, aparece el título Autobiography: In Her Own Image escrito en siete idiomas diferentes, en referencia a los orígenes diversos de las artistas, pero también como homenaje al diseño de Tricontinental, una revista multilingüe de izquierda radical producida por la Orga- como resistencia a las fantasías totalizadoras y a los universalismos nización de Solidaridad con los Pueblos de Asia, África y América que intentan caracterizar el orden mundial capitalista. Recurrimos a Latina (OSPAAL). Es decir, el catálogo de la muestra vuelve explícita articulaciones de solidaridad tercermundista en y en torno a Nueva la conexión con el legado del activismo tercermundista. York para cuestionar la eficacia de esta propuesta de una “tercera vía” After La vida nueva toma el tercer mundo como marco de referen- en el presente, y para especular sobre la futuridad de este proyecto cia y práctica de mundo en términos muy amplios, en la línea de de alianzas transnacionales y anticoloniales. La metodología tercer- conceptos como el “tout-monde” de Édouard Glissant, la “mondiali- mundista también forma parte de la lógica de After La vida nueva, sation” de Jean-Luc Nancy, y la “planetarity” de Gayatry Spivak,40 y un proyecto que, al presentar un grupo de artistas y articular el tejido de las relaciones entre ellxs, también ejemplifica maneras las maneras 38 Chela Sandoval, “U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Opposition- al Consciousness in the Postmodern World” en Geographic Thought, ed. George Hender- colectivas de ser y los mundos posibles que generan, por más breves son y Marvin Waterstone (Nueva York: Routledge, 2009), 339. que sean. 39 Sandoval, 339. 40 Vid. Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007); hay edición castellana: La creación del mundo o la mundialización, trad. Pablo 1997); hay edición castellana: Poética de la relación, trad. Senda Inés Sferco y Ana Paula Perera Melamazan (Madrid, Paidós, 2003): y Gayatri Spivak, Death of a Discipline. (Nue- Penchaszadeh (Bernal, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, 2017); Jean-Luc Nancy, The va York: Columbia University Press, 2003); hay edición castellana: La muerte de una Creation of the World or Globalization (Albany: State University of New York Press, disciplina, trad. Irlanda Villegas (México: Universidad Veracruzana, 2009).

98 99 b. 1953, Buffalo, New York, United States

Alan Michelson is a New York-based artist and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River whose influential work over the last three decades has used a range of media (including installation, public art, and video) to explore the complicated histories of colonized land while foregrounding Indigenous relational modes. His projects frequently address the intersections of place, philosophy, politics, and the environment. Earth’s Eye (1990), a site-specific installation in Lower Manhattan, marks the absent presence of Collect Pond, which was once the primary water source for New York City until it was infilled in 1811 owing to years of pollution. Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, and installed in the pocket park that now exists on the pond’s former site, the work consists of forty concrete markers arranged in the shape of the former shoreline.

1953, Búfalo, Nueva York, Estados Unidos

Alan Michelson es un artista basado en Nueva York, y un miembro mohawk de las Seis Naciones del Río Grande. A lo largo de las tres últimas décadas, su influyente obra ha empleado diversos medios (incluyendo instalaciones, arte público, y video) para explorar las historias complejas de las tierras colonizadas y poner en primer plano los modos relacionales indígenas. Con frecuencia, sus proyectos se ocupan de las intersecciones entre el espacio, la filosofía, la política y el medio ambiente. Earth’s Eye (1990), una instalación de sitio específico en el Bajo Manhattan, señala la presencia ausente del Collect Pond [Lago Colector], la principal fuente de agua corrien- te de Nueva York hasta que, tras años de contaminación, la muni- cipalidad la rellenó en 1811. Encargada por el Public Art Fund, e instalada en el parque que hoy existe donde estaba el Collect Pond,

102 103 The markers are further adorned with casts of corn, oyster shells, barrels, and other artifacts that recall the natural and social history of the area, which once hosted a Lenape settlement. A quote from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (1854) is inscribed on the exteriors of these wedge-shaped blocks, which reads, “a field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air.” Michelson’s site-specific works often address the erasure of In- digenous presence and question settler colonial value systems and their ongoing legacy. For Permanent Title (1993), Michelson took charcoal rubbings on muslin of various structures in Lower Manhat- tan that had been built atop former settler burial grounds — “sacred” ground sacrificed to the rampant development of the city. Sewn into empty sacks and waxed to resemble colonial-era cerecloth, the work draws attention to the historical primacy of real estate over rever- ence in settler culture.

la obra consta de cuarenta bloques de hormigón moldeado alrededor están cosidas sobre bolsones vacíos, y enceradas de una manera que del perímetro histórico del lago. Los bloques están además adorna- recuerda las mortajas de la época colonial. La obra advierte así sobre dos con formas de mazorcas, caparazones de ostras, barriles y otros la primacía histórica del desarrollo inmobiliario por sobre la vene- artefactos que recuerdan la historia social y natural del área, donde ración en la cultura de los colonizadores. alguna vez hubo un asentamiento lenape. En su cara externa, los bloques con forma de cuña llevan tallada una frase de Walden, de Henry David Thoreau (1854): “un campo de agua delata el espíritu que está en el aire”. A menudo los trabajos de sitio específico de Michelson se ocupan de la invisibilización de la presencia indígena y cuestionan el sistema de valores coloniales y su persistente legado. Para Permanent Title (1993), Michelson calcó con carbonilla muestras de varios edificios del Bajo Manhattan que fueron construidos sobre antiguos cementerios coloniales — tierras “sagradas” que fueron sacrificadas al desenfrenado desarrollo inmobiliario de la ciudad. Las muestras

104 105 b. 1977, Santiago, Chile

Amelia Bande’s intermedia performances — which combine sound, found text, original scripts, songs, and moving images — investigate the political economies of intimacy and dependence. Bande often breaks through the fourth wall, implicating herself directly in the audience as a way to ask questions about the kind of community formed in the improvised and temporary space of performative togetherness. In performance, she is often accompanied by a small musical ensemble usually consisting of friends. As the artist states at one point during her performance Is It Our Anger That Makes Us So Beautiful? (2019), “[w]e dance together and it’s enough.” In her most current work, Bande addresses politics more directly by focusing on issues surrounding migration and the conditions of neoliberalism in Chile. For instance, in an untitled performance (2019) at Performance Space New York,

1977, Santiago de Chile

Las performances intermediales de Amelia Bande — que mezclan sonido, textos encontrados, guiones de su autoría e imágenes en movimiento — investigan las economías políticas de la intimidad y la dependencia. Bande a menudo rompe la cuarta pared, involucrándose directamente con el público a fin de preguntarse por la comunidad que se forma en el espacio improvisado y temporario del encuentro performático. En sus presentaciones, suele acompañarla un pequeño grupo musical, usualmente compuesto de amigxs. Como dice la artista durante su performance Is It Our Anger That Makes Us So Beau- tiful? (2019): “Bailamos juntxs y con eso basta”. En su obra más reciente, Bande se implica más directamente en la política, y trabaja con temas de migración y con las condiciones neoliberales en Chile. Por ejemplo, en una performance sin título (2019) que presentó en

107 Bande humorously appropriated forms of long-distance communication to highlight the feelings of futility, failure, and absurdity that accompany trying to comment on global political situations from the isolated and insulated space of the New York art world. Bande began her career as a playwright in Santiago, Chile, where she won the National Playwriting Showcase (2006) and received two National Fund for Arts and Culture Grants (2009 and 2010). In 2012, her plays Chueca and Partir y Renunciar were published in a Spanish-English edition by Sangría Editora. She has presented work at MoMA Li- brary, The Poetry Project, PS1, The Kitchen, Abrons Arts Center, Performance Space, The Shandaken Project at Storm King Arts Cen- ter, NewBridge Project in Newcastle, NGBK Berlin and Flutgraben Kunstfabrik Berlin.

el Performance Space New York, Bande se apropió jocosamente de formas de comunicación de larga distancia para señalar la sensa- ción de inutilidad, fracaso y absurdo que produce intentar hablar de cuestiones de política mundial desde un espacio tan aislado como el mundillo del arte de Nueva York. Bande empezó su carrera como dramaturga en Santiago de Chile, donde ganó la Muestra de Drama- turgia Nacional (2006) y recibió dos subsidios del Fondo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes (2009 y 2010). En 2012, Sangría Editora publicó sus obras Chueca y Partir y renunciar en edición bilingüe, en castellano y en inglés. Ha presentado su trabajo en MoMA Li- brary, The Poetry Project, PS1, The Kitchen, Abrons Arts Center, Performance Space, The Shandaken Project en el Storm King Arts Center, NewBridge Project en Newcastle, NGBK Berlin y Flutgraben Kunstfabrik Berlin.

108 109 b. 1980, Los Angeles, California, United States

Caroline Key works in film and video, exploring the construction of subjectivities under conditions of precarity, alterity, and displacement. Speech Memory (2006) consists of a dialogue between the artist and her father. The conversation focuses on Key’s grandfather, a deaf- mute Korean man born in Japan in 1920, during Japan’s occupation of Korea. The film offers a reflection on Japanese imperialism and post-coloniality in the United States. Grace Period (2015), a feature film which premiered at the New Museum, combines documentary-style footage and digitally manipulated imagery that portray women sex workers in the Yeongdeungpo district of Seoul, Korea. For this work, which was completed while Key was in-residence at the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum, the artist received a Fulbright Research Fellowship. Key is currently working on

1980, Los Ángeles, California, Estados Unidos

Caroline Key trabaja en cine y video, explorando la construcción de subjetividades en condiciones de precariedad, alteridad y desplazamiento. Speech Memory (2006) es un diálogo entre la artista y su padre. El tema central de esa conversación es el abuelo de Key, un ciudadano coreano sordomudo nacido en Japón en 1920, durante la ocupación japonesa de Corea. La película presenta una reflexión sobre el imperialismo japonés y la poscolonialidad en los Estados Unidos. Grace Period (2015), largometraje estrenado en el New Mu- seum, mezcla imágenes de estilo documental con otras manipuladas digitalmente, para retratar a las trabajadoras sexuales en el distrito de Yeongdeungpo de Seúl, Corea. Para este trabajo, terminado durante la residencia de Key en el Independent Study Program del Whit- ney, la artista recibió una beca de investigación Fulbright. Key se

111 Fascinating Vacation, a continuation of Speech Memory. This new work, which combines 16mm film with cellphone camera footage, finds the artist once again in dialogue with her father, this time exploring the intertwining of personal and historical events through his memories of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980 and his involvement in the Vietnam War as a soldier for the Korean army, which at the time was allied with the United States. Key has received awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Jerome Foundation, the Sarah Jacobsen Film Grant, and the NYSCA/ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes. Her films have been shown at the Arsenal Cinema in Berlin, the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum, the Seoul Independent Film Festival, the Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival, the Chicago Underground Film Festival, and the Images Festival in Toronto.

encuentra trabajando actualmente en Fascinating Vacation, una con- tinuación de Speech Memory. En este nuevo trabajo, que mezcla fil- maciones en 16 mm con imágenes de la cámara del teléfono celu- lar, una vez más la artista dialoga con su padre, esta vez explorando cómo se entrelazan cuestiones personales e históricas a partir de sus recuerdos del Levantamiento de Gwangju en 1980 y su experiencia en la guerra de Vietnam como soldado del ejército coreano, que en ese momento estaba aliado con los Estados Unidos. Key ha recibi- do premios de la Fundación para las Artes Contemporáneas, la Fun- dación Jerome, la Beca de Cine Sarah Jacobsen y el Consejo NYSCA / ARTS de Southern Finger Lakes. Sus películas se han exhibido en el cineclub Arsenal de Berlín, el Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum, el Festival de Cine Independiente de Seúl, el Festival de Cine y Video Margaret Mead, el Underground Film Festival de Chicago y el Images Festival de Toronto.

112 113 b. 1940, Santiago, Chile

Catalina Parra investigates censorship, liberty, economic disparity, and collective memory through works of art that use abstraction to pointed political effect. She is best known for her “reconstructions,” collages that both rework and mimic popular print media including fashion magazines and newspapers such as Santiago’s paper of record El Mercurio and, in later works, the New York Times. In her first solo exhibition in Chile at Santiago’s Galería Época in 1977, Parra displayed twenty-four such reconstructions, produced between 1971 and 1977, which offered acerbic critiques of state-sponsored narratives. Many were made by hand-stitching images together with red thread, which references the imbunche, a figure derived from indigenous Chilean myth that appears with every orifice sewn shut. At a time when politically engaged artists in Chile were being forced

1940, Santiago de Chile

Catalina Parra investiga la censura, la libertad, la desigualdad económica y la memoria colectiva haciendo un uso agudamente político de la abstracción en sus obras. Se la conoce sobre todo por sus “reconstrucciones”, collages que reelaboran e imitan la prensa gráfica popular, por ejemplo revistas de moda y periódicos, como el periódico El Mercurio, de Santiago de Chile, y luego el New York Times, en trabajos más recientes. En su primera exposición individual en Chile, en la Galería Época de Santiago en 1977, Parra ex- hibió veinticuatro de estas producidas entre 1971 y 1977, que criticaban con mordacidad los discursos estatales. Muchas de estas las hizo cosiendo a mano imágenes con hilo rojo, en referencia al imbunche, una figura de la mitología indígena araucana que tiene cosidos los orificios del cuerpo. En un momento en que muchos

115 into exile or disappeared owing to the overtly oppositional nature of their work, Parra’s use of the imbunche as a metaphor for the conditions of silence surrounding state-sponsored violence allowed her to critique the government while, at the same time, avoiding persecution. In 1980, a Guggenheim fellowship allowed her to travel to New York City, where she has been based ever since. Her installation Variaciones Ornamentales was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1981 in the program “Video From Latin America” curated by Barbara London. She has also been included in The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s (New Museum, 1990) and Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, 2007 and 2008). Parra worked for many years as an educator at both El Museo del Barrio and the New Museum, where she taught classes for public school students on political art.

artistas políticamente comprometidos de Chile se veían obligadxs a exiliarse, o el Estado lxs desaparecía a causa de a la naturaleza abiertamente opositora de su trabajo, el uso de Parra del imbunche como metáfora del silenciamiento impuesto por el terrorismo de Es- tado le permitió criticar al gobierno sin que la persiguieran. En 1980, una beca Guggenheim le permitió viajar a la ciudad de Nueva York, donde vive desde entonces. Su instalación Variaciones ornamentales se mostró en el MoMA en 1981 en el programa “Video From Latin America”, curado por Barbara London. También ha sido incluida en The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s (New Museum, 1990) y Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles y PS1 Contemporary Art Center, 2007 y 2008). Parra trabajó durante muchos años como educadora tanto en El Museo del Barrio como en el New Museum, donde im- partió clases de arte político para estudiantes de escuelas públicas.

116 117 b.1989, Beijing, China

Cici Wu’s multi-media practice — comprising film, video, sculpture, and drawing — is rooted in an intertextual approach to archival research. Her most recent work, an installation titled Unfinished Return of Yu Man Hon (2019), investigates cultural memory through decon- structing the cinematic apparatus. The centerpiece of the project is a video comprising 16mm film and VHS home-movie footage which traces the unsolved disappearance of Yu Man-hon, an autistic 15-year old who accidentally wandered across the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border into mainland China and, to this day, has not been found. Wu’s video imagines Yu Man-hon slowly recovering his memory of his identity and of leaving home, as the camera follows him on his am- bulatory path through transitional and public urban spaces. The video is accompanied by a series of hybrid light sculptures that use

1989, Beijing, China

La práctica multimedia de Cici Wu, que abarca cine, video, escultura y dibujo, trabaja con archivos desde un enfoque intertextual. Su obra más reciente, una instalación titulada Unfinished Return of Yu Man Hon (2019), es un estudio de la memoria cultural a partir de la deconstrucción del aparato cinematográfico. La pieza central del proyecto es un video que combina imágenes en 16 mm y fragmentos de películas caseras en VHS que investigan la desaparición no esclarecida de Yu Man-hon, un adolescente autista de quince años que accidentalmente cruzó la frontera entre Hong Kong y Shenzhen en la China continental y que hasta el día de hoy no ha vuelto a aparecer. El video de Wu se imagina que Yu Man-hon recupera lentamente la memoria de su identidad y el recuerdo de haberse ido de su casa, mientras la cámara lo sigue en su deambular por

119 readymade lamps sourced from a Hong Kong film prop warehouse. With titles like Subtitle 01 (Justice and Hope) (2019) and Subtitle 01 (Forgotten Place to Forget) (2019), these bamboo and paper assemblages point to processes of linguistic and cultural translation while also evoking the primacy of light in cinema and visuality. The assemblages also link this function with the colonial history of Hong Kong. Wu moved to the US from Hong Kong in 2013, where she earned an MFA in Sculpture from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. She has had solo exhibitions at 47 Canal, New York (2018), Bonnevalle, Noisy-le-Sec, France (2018), and has participated in group exhibitions at Interstate Projects, Brooklyn (2019), Para Site, Hong Kong (2018), and Triangle Art Association, Brooklyn (2017), among others. She also co-founded PRACTICE, a studio, residency, and exhibition space based in New York which has been operating since 2015.

espacios de transición y otros urbanos y públicos. El video se acom- paña de una serie de esculturas lumínicas híbridas que utilizan lámparas prefabricadas que vienen de un depósito de utilería de cine de Hong Kong. Con títulos como Subtitle 01 (Justice and Hope) (2019) y Subtitle 01 (Forgotten Place to Forget) (2019), estos ensamblajes de bambú y papel señalan procesos de traducción lingüística y cultural a la vez que evocan el papel protagónico de la luz en el cine y el ámbito de lo visual. Los ensamblajes también vincu- lan esta función con la historia colonial de Hong Kong. Wu se fue de Hong Kong para mudarse a los EE.UU. en 2013, donde obtuvo una maestría en escultura del Maryland Institute College of Art de Baltimore. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en 47 Canal, en Nueva York (2018) y Bonnevalle, en Noisy-le-Sec, Francia (2018). Ha participado en exposiciones colectivas en Interstate Projects, en Brooklyn (2019); Para Site, en Hong Kong (2018); y Triangle Art

120 121 Association, en Brooklyn (2017), entre otros lugares. También es una de las fundadoras de PRACTICE, un estudio, residencia y espacio de exhibición con sede en Nueva York que funciona desde 2015.

122 Founded 2007

Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab is a collective of cy- ber activists and artists working at the intersections of experimental theater, poetry, new media, and hacktivism. Their work responds to humanitarian crises with radical interventions and gestures that en- act electronic civil disobedience. Their current formation emerged out of Electronic Disturbance Theater, an earlier collective originally established in 1997 by Ricardo Dominguez, which focused on developing the theory and practice of nonviolent acts of defiance through digital media. For FloodNet (1998), they created a program based on HTML and Java Applet which allowed people to target US and Mexico governmental websites, slowing them down and replacing their error messages with words of protest and poetry. It was a form of “virtual sit-in,” through which they expressed their support of the Zapatista

Fundado en 2007

Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0 / b.a.n.g. lab es un colectivo de ciberactivistas y artistas que trabajan en las intersecciones del teatro experimental, la poesía, los nuevos medios y el hacktivismo. Su trabajo responde a crisis humanitarias con intervenciones radicales y gestos que promulgan la desobediencia civil electrónica. Su formación actual surgió del Electronic Disturbance Theater, un colectivo anterior establecido originalmente en 1997 por Ricardo Domínguez, cuyo fin era desarrollar la teoría y la práctica de la insumisión no violenta a partir de medios digitales. Para FloodNet (1998), crearon un programa que usaba HTML y Java Applet que permitía que lxs usuarixs atacaran sitios web de los gobiernos de Estados Unidos y Méxicos, saturándolos y reemplazando sus mensajes de error con consignas de protesta y poesía. Fue una especie de “sentada virtual”, mediante

124 125 revolutionary movement and opposed the Mexican state’s adoption gational technology, is a series of poems written by Amy Sara Car- of neoliberalism. Hovering between aesthetics and politics, the col- roll. The poetry operates as a form of sustenance and currently ex- lective goal of EDT is the disturbance of borders, whether in relation ists both as a written series in addition to audio files translated into to the nation, gender, genre, or disciplinary boundaries. They are eleven languages. widely known for the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a project that began in 2007 and was originally designed as a GPS tool, or geopoetic system, distributed on repurposed cellphones containing both poems and a map to assist those journeying the desert that surrounds the US-Mexico border. Using unidirectional guidance, this map meant to help border crossers by directing them to clean water caches in the Anza-Borrego Desert, without also giving away the location of the users. Following intense public scrutiny and an FBI investigation, the practical deployment of this tool was abandoned. Yet, the project has since been adapted into several iterations. One abiding aspect of the project, programmed alongside its now defunct navi-

la cual expresaban su apoyo al movimiento revolucionario zapatista del FBI, las aplicaciones prácticas de esta herramienta debieron ser y se oponían a la adopción del neoliberalismo por parte del estado abandonadas. De todos modos, en lo sucesivo el proyecto tuvo varias mexicano. A caballo entre la estética y la política, el objetivo colecti- nuevas adaptaciones. Una constante del proyecto, que desde el prin- vo de EDT es la erosión de las fronteras, ya sea en relación con la na- cipio acompañaba la tecnología de navegación luego discontinuada, ción, el género, los géneros artísticos o los límites disciplinarios. Son es una serie de poemas escritos por Amy Sara Carroll. La poesía sobre todo conocidxs por su Transborder Immigrant Tool, un proyec- funciona como forma de sustento, y actualmente existe en versión to que comenzó en 2007 y que en sus orígenes estaba diseñado como escrita además de los archivos de audio traducidos a once idiomas. una herramienta GPS, o sistema geopoético, distribuido en teléfonos celulares modificados que contienen poesía y mapas para ayudar a las personas que viajan por el desierto para atravesar la frontera entre México y los Estados Unidos. Mediante un sistema de navegación unidireccional, este mapa buscaba ayudar a lxs migrantes al indi- carles la ubicación de depósitos de agua en el desierto de Anza-Bor- rego, sin que a la vez sus teléfonos celulares revelaran su posición. Luego de una gran repercusión en los medios y una investigación

126 127 b. 1979, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Rashaad Newsome inventively blends collage, sculpture, film, photography, music, computer programming, software engineering, and performance to construct new cultural frameworks that reclaim and celebrate the Black body and Black vernacular. Since moving to New York nearly two decades ago, Newsome has worked inti- mately with the vogue community (developed from New York City’s queer ballroom scene of the 1970s) as a participant, documentari- an, and producer. Within this work, Newsome has largely focused on creating an archive of the vogue-femme style, which came into fruition in the 1990s through queer communities of color. New- some not only records but abstracts this style. Often presenting opulent imagery, his works regularly sample art history alongside advertising and iconography from Black American culture in order

1979, Nueva Orleans, Louisiana, Estados Unidos

Rashaad Newsome mezcla de manera muy imaginativa collage, escultura, cine, fotografía, música, programación, ingeniería de software y performance para construir nuevos marcos culturales que recupe- ren y celebren el cuerpo y el habla coloquial de lxs negrxs. Lue- go de establecerse en Nueva York hace casi dos décadas, Newsome ha trabajado estrechamente con la comunidad vogue (que surgió de la cultura ballroom de Nueva York de la década de 1970) como participante, documentalista y productor. En particular, Newsome se ha ocupado de documentar la cultura femme, que surgió en la década de 1990 en comunidades queer de color. Newsome no sólo registra sino que se apropia de ese estilo. A menudo con imágenes de opu- lencia, sus obras suelen mezclar alusiones a la historia del arte con publicidad e iconografía de la cultura estadounidense negra para

129 to point out the intersectional dynamics of race, beauty, and gender. Icon (2014) contains a mashup of videos that play on loop, and which feature vogue performers dancing against an ornate computer-generated backdrop. This expansive 3D realm is fashioned after baroque architectural grandeur with repetitive structural lines that take the form of a Cuban link chain, depicting an interplay of abstraction and fantasy. Moving between a multiplicity of forms, New- some’s compositions reveal complex languages of power while also making room for new possibilities that veer from coded associations. Since 2013, he has staged the annual King of Arms Art Ball and is currently at work on a documentary, GET YOUR 10s, exploring the expansive growth of vogue communities across the world, including in Paris, Tokyo, São Paulo, and Johannesburg. Most recently, Newsome’s practice has focused on the social implications of artificial intelligence in his ambitious projectBeing , a non-binary and

dar cuenta de la dinámica interseccional entre raza, belleza y géne- ro. Icon (2014) presenta un mashup de videos que se reproducen en loop, en los que se ve a artistas de la comunidad vogue bailando sobre un fondo fastuoso generado por computadora. Este mundo en 3D se inspira en la grandilocuencia arquitectónica del barroco, con líneas y estructuras repetitivas que a su vez se anudan como una cadena cubana enchapada en oro, representando un juego entre abs- tracción y fantasía. Las composiciones de Newsome se mueven entre una multiplicidad de formas, subrayando la complejidad de los len- guajes del poder, al tiempo que revelan nuevas posibilidades que se desvían de asociaciones codificadas. Desde 2013, organiza el King of Arms Art Ball, que se celebra todos los años, y actualmente se encuentra trabajando en GET YOUR 10S, un documental que registra el fuerte crecimiento de las comunidades a escala mundial, incluyendo París, Tokio, San Pablo y Johannesburgo. Recientemente,

130 131 non-racial AI humanoid. Newsome has exhibited and performed internationally at venues including The Studio Museum in Harlem, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, SFMOMA, The Whitney Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou, and The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, among others.

Newsome ha estado investigando las consecuencias sociales de la inteligencia artificial en su ambicioso proyectoBeing , una inteligencia artificial humanoide no binaria y no racializada. Newsome ha presentado sus obras y performances en todo el mundo, incluyendo el Studio Museum in Harlem, el National Museum of African Amer- ican History and Culture, SFMOMA, el Whitney Museum, el Cen- tre Georges Pompidou, el Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, entre otros.

132 b. 1950, Santiago, Chile

Raúl Zurita’s body of work encompasses poetry, performance, and artistic interventions that reflect on Chilean history, nature, and the role of art and poetry in the radical transformation of society. As a young artist, Zurita was arrested and held captive for twenty-five days in a military ship following the 1973 coup led by Augusto Pino- chet. After being released, Zurita became involved in the city’s poetry and artistic circles, participating in the seminal publication Man- uscritos in 1975 and co-founding the group Colectivo de Acciones de Artes (CADA) in 1979. CADA made artistic interventions in Santia- go denouncing the injustices of the military regime. In one of their most famous projects, Ay, Sudamérica (1981), the group hired six airplanes to bomb the city of Santiago with flyers containing an artistic manifesto by CADA. The following year, Zurita hired five planes in

1950, Santiago de Chile

La obra de Raúl Zurita abarca poesía, performance e intervenciones artísticas que reflexionan sobre la historia, la naturaleza y el papel del arte y la poesía en la transformación radical de la sociedad. Cuando era joven, a Zurita lo arrestaron y lo tuvieron preso veinticinco días en un barco del ejército, tras el golpe de estado de 1973 dirigido por Augusto Pinochet. Luego de su liberación, Zurita empezó invo- lucrarse con otrxs artistas y poetas de Santiago. En 1975 participó del número único de la importante publicación Manuscritos, y en 1979 fue uno de los fundadores del grupo Colectivo de Acciones de Artes (CADA) en 1979. CADA realizó intervenciones artísticas en Santiago denunciando las injusticias del régimen militar. En uno de sus proyectos más famosos, Ay, Sudamérica (1981), el grupo contrató seis aviones para bombardear la ciudad de Santiago con volantes

134 135 Queens, New York, to sky-type his poem “La vida nueva.” In 1993, he directed an effort to etch into the Atacama Desert in Chile a one-line work, “ni pena ni miedo” (neither pain nor fear), along three kilometers using bulldozers. He is currently working on a project to write a poem on the Andean cliffs. Zurita has also published several books of poetry, many of which have been translated into multiple languages. For his writing, Zurita was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984, the Pablo Neruda Prize in 1998, the Chilean National Litera- ture Prize in 2000, and the Casa de las Américas Prize for Poetry in 2006, among others recognitions. As an artist, he has presented work at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016) and The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University (2016), among other places.

que contenían un manifiesto artístico firmado por CADA. Al año siguiente, Zurita contrató cinco aviones para que escribir su poema “La vida nueva” en el cielo de Queens, Nueva York. En 1993, di- rigió una iniciativa para escribir con excavadoras en un tramo de tres kilómetros del desierto de Atacama, en Chile, en letras monumenta- les una obra de un solo verso, “ni pena ni miedo”. Actualmente está trabajando en un proyecto para escribir un poema en la Cordillera de los Andes. Zurita también ha publicado varios libros de poesía, muchos de los cuales han sido traducidos a varios idiomas. Por su poesía, Zurita recibió una beca Guggenheim en 1984, el Premio Pablo Neruda en 1998, el Premio Nacional de Literatura de Chile en 2000 y el Premio de Poesía Casa de las Américas en 2006, entre otros reco- nocimientos. Como artista, ha presentado trabajos en la Bienal de Kochi-Muziris (2016) y en el Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts de la Universidad de Harvard (2016), entre otros lugares.

136 b. 1959, Cleveland, Ohio, United States

Renée Green is an artist, filmmaker, and writer whose works have been exhibited around the world. Across her practice, Green engages a variety of methodologies in order to interrogate the transmission and displacement of both cultural ideas and diasporic communities. Often taking the form of installations, Green’s practice is expansive in scope, drawing out connections across art, literature, music, politics, and cinema. One of the aspects of her 1992 installation, Import/ Export Funk Office, presented the artist’s collection of music, books, and magazines alongside cultural theorist and curator Diedrich Died- erichsen’s collection of objects relating to African diasporic cultures, as well as the international spread of hip-hop music and culture. First exhibited in Cologne and subsequently at the 1993 Whitney Bi- ennial, these juxtapositions reinterpreted notions of cultural appro-

1959, Cleveland, Ohio, Estados Unidos

Renée Green es una artista, cineasta y escritora cuyas obras se han exhibido en todo el mundo. En su práctica artística, Green aplica dis- tintas metodologías para preguntarse por la transmisión y el desplazamiento de ideas culturales y comunidades diaspóricas. A menudo en forma de instalaciones, la práctica de Green es muy expansiva, y a menudo traza conexiones entre el arte, la literatura, la música, la política y el cine. Uno de los aspectos de Import / Export Funk Office, su instalación de 1992, presentaba la colección de discos, libros y revistas de la artista junto con otra colección, propiedad del teórico y curador cultural Diedrich Diederichsen, de objetos relacio- nados con las culturas africanas de la diáspora, así como la difusión internacional del hip-hop, tanto de su música como de su cultura. Ex- puestas por primera vez en Colonia y luego en la Bienal del Whitney

138 139 priation and brought to light the conceptual and cultural connections between German intellectual traditions and Black cultural criticism. Green’s labyrinthine research-driven practice is also sketched out in her extensive body of writing which blends the essayistic with critical theory and cultural criticism through her perceptions as an active participant and producer in the international cultural field. Her books include Other Planes of There (Duke University Press, 2014), a collection of essays spanning nearly thirty years, and Shad- ows and Signals (Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 2000), which includes the scripts for her Partially Buried series (1996 – 97). Her writing has also been published in Transition, October, and Texte zur Kunst, among others. Since 2011, she has been a Professor in the Program in Art, Culture and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

de 1993, estas yuxtaposiciones volvían sobre la idea de apropiación cultural y exhibían las conexiones conceptuales y culturales entre las tradiciones intelectuales alemanas y la crítica cultural negra. La obra laberíntica de Green, en la que la investigación desempeña un papel fundamental, también incluye un abundante corpus escrito en el que mezcla diferentes elementos del ensayo, como la teoría crítica, la crítica cultural y sus propias impresiones como participante y pro- ductora en el campo cultural internacional. Entre sus libros se cuen- tan Other Planes of There (Duke University Press, 2014), un conjunto de ensayos escritos a lo largo de casi treinta años, y Shadows and Signals (Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 2000), donde se encuentran los guiones para la serie Partially Buried (1996 – 97). Su obra escrita ha aparecido en Transition, October y Texte zur Kunst, entre otras publicaciones. Desde 2011, enseña en el programa de Arte, Cultura y Tecnología del Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

140 1952 – 1999, Mumbai, India

Rummana Hussain’s pioneering performances, videos, and installations mount inquiries into the construction of gender and religious identity. Her first solo exhibition at Chemould Gallery in 1994 drew upon medieval Sufi mythology as a way of thinking through modes of secular art making in response to communal violence. Having started her practice as an allegorical and figurative painter, Hussain turned to multi-media work in the 1990s along with a group of feminist activists and artists. Widely known as the first performance artist in India, Hussain followed the Leftist cultural belief in art as a vehicle for political action with the potential to intervene directly in public space. Her first performance work, Living on the Margins (1995), considered the silencing of women during times of political unrest. In this performance, as in her work more generally, the artist used

1952 – 1999, Mumbai, India

Pionera en esas disciplinas artísticas, las performances, videos e instalaciones de Rummana Hussain examinan la construcción de la i- dentidad de género y religiosa. Su primera exposición individual en la Galería Chemould en 1994 se valió de la mitología sufí medieval para pensar maneras de responder a la violencia comunitaria desde el arte secular. Luego de sus comienzos en la pintura alegórica y fi- gurativa, Hussain se dedicó al trabajo multimedia en los años noven- ta junto con un grupo de activistas y artistas feministas. Considerada la primera artista de performance de la India, Hussain se acercó a la creencia de la izquierda en el arte como un vehículo para la acción política que es capaz de intervenir directamente en el espacio públi- co. Su primera performance, Living on the Margins (1995), estudió el silenciamiento de las mujeres en tiempos de disturbios políticos. En

142 143 her body to reflect the violence of the nation-state and as a site to stage a struggle over the politics of representation. Shortly thereafter, Hussain was diagnosed with breast cancer and began travelling back and forth to New York City to receive treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering. In part, it was this travel that led to Hussain’s participation in a residency at Art in General in 1998 where the artist presented her last site-specific installation. TitledIn Order to Join (1998), this project traced linkages between the hybrid cultures of New York City and Mumbai through notions of passages. Hussain’s work has been presented internationally, including at Tate Modern, London; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Tamayo Museum, Mexico City; Asia Society, New York City; Talwar Gallery, New York City and New Delhi; and Chemould Gallery, Mumbai. In 2019, she posthumously represented India at the 58th Venice Biennale.

esta performance, como en toda su obra en general, la artista usó su cuerpo para denunciar la violencia del Estado-nación y para discutir las políticas de la representación. Poco después, le diagnosticaron cáncer de mama, y tuvo que empezar a viajar a Nueva York para tratarse en el hospital Memorial Sloan Kettering. En parte, por eso participó en una residencia en Art in General en 1998, donde pre- sentó su última instalación de sitio específico. TituladoIn Order to Join (1998), este proyecto trazaba paralelos entre la hibridez cultural de Nueva York y Bombay a través de la idea de los pasajes. El trabajo de Hussain se ha presentado en museos y galerías de todo el mundo, incluyendo el Tate Modern de Londres; la Queensland Art Gallery de Brisbane; el Museo Tamayo de la Ciudad de México; la Asia Society, de Nueva York; la Talwar Gallery, de Nueva York y Nueva Delhi; y la Chemould Gallery, Mumbai. En 2019, representó de manera pós- tuma a la India en la 58a Bienal de Venecia.

144 1951 – 1982, Busan, South Korea

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s profuse artistic practice considers the productive space between languages, often using such spaces to symbol- ize social and physical distances. Born in Busan, South Korea, her family emigrated to San Francisco when she was 13 years old. Cha studied literature, art, and film at the University of California, Berkeley, and obtained four degrees while also working part-time at the Pacific Film Archive. Fluent in Korean, English, and French, Cha frequently incorporated multiple languages in both her artistic practice and her writ-ing. Her performances and videos critically illustrate the experience of displacement while also interrogating notions of community and spectatorship. In the early 1970s, Cha turned towards performance and video art just as these genres were beginning to enter artistic consciousness. For her performance Aveugle Voix (1975),

1951 – 1982, Busan, Corea del Sur

En la prolífica carrera artística de Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, se observa un fuerte interés por la productividad de los espacios entre lenguas, y la artista a menudo usa esos espacios como símbolos de las dis- tancias sociales y físicas. Nacida en Busan, Corea del Sur, su familia emigró a San Francisco cuando tenía 13 años. Cha estudió literatura, arte y cine en la Universidad de California, Berkeley, y obtuvo títulos en todas estas disciplinas mientras trabajaba a tiempo parcial en el Pacific Film Archive. Gracias a su manejo fluido de coreano, el inglés y el francés, con frecuencia Cha incorporó varios idiomas tanto en su práctica artística como en su escritura. Sus performances y videos ilustran críticamente la experiencia del desplazamiento, al tiempo que se preguntan por las nociones de comunidad y público. A principios de los años setenta, Cha se empezó a dedicar a la performance y al

146 147 the artist dressed entirely in white and was blindfolded and gagged also published with Tanam, is Cha’s most famous book, and since its with strips of white fabric printed with black text that read, “VOIX” publication has become a canonical text in avant-garde writing and (voice) and “AVEUGLE” (blind), respectively. She then unfolded a Asian-American literary studies. banner that read “WORDS — FAIL— ME — SANS — MOT — SANS — VOIX — AVEUGLE — GESTE” (WITHOUT — WORD — WITHOUT — VOICE — BLIND — GESTURE) and began interacting silently with the textile, toying with the sensory apperception of the written words. After moving to New York in 1980, Cha began working at Tanam Press, an imprint founded by artist Reese Williams. Through Ta- nam she published Apparatus, Cinematographic Apparatus: Select- ed Writings (1980), an anthology of essays on film theory presented as an artist’s book that features contributions from Roland Barthes, Dziga Vertov, Christian Metz, and others. The anthology also includes graphics that illustrate the cinematic apparatus, translating its sense-making mechanisms into diagrammatic form. Dictée (1982),

videoarte, antes de que estos géneros se consolidaran en el reper- gía también incluye gráficos que ilustran el aparato cinematográfico, torio de las prácticas artísticas. Para su performance Aveugle Voix traduciendo sus mecanismos semióticos a diagramas. Dictée (1982), (1975), la artista se presentó vestida de blanco de los pies a la cabe- también publicado por Tanam, es el libro más famoso de Cha, y des- za, con los ojos y la boca cubiertas con tiras de tela blanca con letras de su publicación se ha convertido en un texto canónico en la escri- negras estampadas que decían “VOIX” (voz) y “AVEUGLE” (ciego), tura de vanguardia y los estudios literarios asiático-estadounidenses. respectivamente. A continuación, desplegó una pancarta que decía WORDS — FAIL — ME — SANS — MOT — SANS — VOIX — AVEU- GLE — GESTE y se puso a tocar en silencio la tela, jugando con la sensorialidad se las palabras escritas. Tras mudarse a Nueva York en 1980, Cha comenzó a trabajar con Tanam Press, un proyecto editorial fundado por la artista Reese Wil- liams. Con Tanam publicó Apparatus, Cinematographic Apparatus: Selected Writings (1980), una antología de ensayos sobre teoría cine- matográfica presentada como un libro de artista, y que incluye trabajos de Roland Barthes, Dziga Vertov, Christian Metz y otrxs. La antolo-

148 149 1. Alan Michelson, Permanent the artist, University of Michigan Ann Title, 1993. Wax, muslin, charcoal. Arbor, and University of California, 144 × 144 × 9 in. (366 × 366 × 23 cm). San Diego. Courtesy the artist. 10. Rummana Hussain, Living on the 2. Amelia Bande, El Estallido / Margins, 1995. Video, color, sound; The Outbreak, 2020. Performance, 28 minutes. Courtesy Rummana Hussain Courtesy the artist. Family Collection.

3. Caroline Key, Speech Memory, 11. Rashaad Newsome, Shade 2007. 16mm film on video, color, sound; Compositions, 2012. Video, color, sound; 23 minutes. Courtesy the artist. 50 minutes. Courtesy the artist.

4. Catalina Parra, Fosa común, 1984. 12. Raúl Zurita, La vida nueva, 1982. Two JPEGs of installation at Art Video, color, sound; 27 minutes 42 Awareness Gallery, Lexington, New York, seconds. Videography by Juan Downey. USA. Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, Courtesy the artist. New York. 13. Renée Green, Partially Buried, 1996. 5. Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2001. Two Video, color, sound; 20 minutes. JPEGs of installation at Mercosul Courtesy the artist, Free Agent Media, Biennial, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do and Video Data Bank. Sul (Brazil). Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, New York. 14. Renée Green, Partially Buried Continued, 1997. Video, color, sound; 6. Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2005. Two 36 minutes. Courtesy the artist, Free JPEGs of installation at Atacama Desert Agent Media, and Video Data Bank. (Chile). Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, New York. 15. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Mouth to Mouth, 1975. Video, black and white, 7. Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2005. Video, sound; 8 minutes. Courtesy Electronic color, sound; 7 minutes 26 seconds. Arts Intermix. Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, New York. Archival Materials 8. Cici Wu, Foreign Object #1 Fluffy Light (anonymous), 2018. Handmade 16. Come Out!: A Liberation Forum opalescent glass, CDS photo-reflectors, for the Gay Community. Volume 1, white and orange LED indicator, Number 5, September/October 1970. switch, chargeable battery, electronic Produced by Gay Liberation Front. board, memory cardboard. 4.5 × 4.5 × Courtesy Archivo Moléculas Malucas. 4.5 in. (11.43 × 11.43 × 11.43 cm). Courtesy the artist and 47 Canal Gallery. 17. Autobiography: In Her Own Image. Edited by Howardena Pindell. Published 9. Electronic Disturbance Theater by INTAR Gallery (New York, USA, 1988). 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, The Transborder Immigrant Tool, 2014. Mixed Media 18. “Come Out in Third World Lingo.” (i455 Motorola, walkingtools.net Created by Third World Gay Revolution. software, images, poetry, audio, mylar, Back cover of Come Out!, Volume 1, felt). Dimensions variable. Courtesy Number 7, December/January 1970 – 71

151 Master copy courtesy Archivo 1. Alan Michelson, Permanent Title, 1993. variables. Cortesía de lxs artistas, Volumen 1, Número 7, diciembre/enero, Moléculas Malucas. Cera, muselina, carbonilla. 144 × 144 × Universidad de Michigan Ann Arbor, y 1970 – 71. Copia maestra cortesía del 9 pulgadas. (366 × 366 × 23 cm). Cortesía Universidad de California, San Diego. Archivo Moléculas Malucas. 19. “Third World Women: The Politics del artista. of Being Other.” Issue 8 of Heresies: 10. Rummana Hussain, Living on the 19. “Third World Women: The Politics of A Feminist Publication on Art 2. Amelia Bande, El Estallido / The Margins, 1995. Video, color, sonido; Being Other.” Número 8 de Heresies: A and Politics, Volume 2, Number 4, Outbreak, 2020. Performance. Cortesía de 28 minutos. Cortesía Colección Familia Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, 1979. Edited by Lula Mae Blocton, Y la artista. de Rummana Hussain Volumen 2, Número 4, 1979. Editado vonne Flowers, Valerie Harris, Zarina por Lula Mae Blocton, Yvonne Flowers, Hashmi, Virginia Jaramillo, Dawn 3. Caroline Key, Speech Memory, 2007. 11. Rashaad Newsome, Shade Valerie Harris, Zarina Hashmi, Virginia Russell, and Naeemah Shabazz. Digital Video en 16mm, color, sonido; Compositions, 2012. Video, color, sonido; Jaramillo, Dawn Russell, copy, accessed on October 1, 2019. 23 minutos. Cortesía de la artista. 50 minutos. Cortesía del artista. y Naeemah Shabazz. Copia digital en: http://heresiesfilmproject.org/wp-content/ http://heresiesfilmproject.org/wp- uploads/2011/09/heresies8.pdf. 4. Catalina Parra, Fosa común, 1984. 12. Raúl Zurita, La vida nueva, 1982. content/uploads/2011/09/heresies8.pdf. Dos archivos JPEG de la instalación en Video, color, sonido; 27 minutos, Consultada el 1 de octubre, 2019. 20. Manuscritos 1. Published by El Art Awareness Gallery Lexington, 42 segundos. Videografía de Juan Departamento (Santiago, Chile, 1975). Nueva York, Estados Unidos Cortesía del Downey. Cortesía del artista. 20. Manuscritos. Publicada por El Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, Archivo Catalina Parra, Nueva York. Departamento (Santiago, Chile, 1975). New York. 13. Renée Green, Partially Buried, 1996. Cortesía del Archivo Catalina Parra, 5. Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2001. Dos Video, color, sonido; 20 minutos. Cortesía Nueva York. 21. Anteparaíso. Written by Raúl archivos JPEG de la instalación en la de la artist, Free Agent Media, y Video Zurita. Published by Editores Asociados Bienal del Mercosur, Puerto Alegre, Data Bank. 21. Anteparaíso. Escrito por Raúl (Santiago, Chile, 1982). Rio Grande do Sul (Brasil). Cortesía del Zurita. Publicado por Editores Asociados Archivo Catalina Parra, Nueva York. 14. Renée Green. Partially Buried (Santiago, Chile, 1982). 22. Dictée. Written by Theresa Hak Continued, 1997. Video, color, sonido; 36 Kyung Cha. Published by Tanam Press 6. Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2005. Dos minutos. Cortesía de la artist, Free Agent 22. Dictée. Escrito por Theresa Hak Kyung (New York, USA, 1982). archivos JPEG de la instalación en el Media, y Video Data Bank.k Cha. Publicado por Tanam Press (Nueva Desierto de Atacama (Chile). Cortesía York, Estados Unidos, 1982). del Archivo Catalina Parra, Nueva York. 15. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Mouth to Mouth, 1975. Video, blanco y negro, 7. Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2005. Video, sonido; 8 minutos. Cortesía de Electronic color, sonido; 7 minutos 26 segundos. Arts Intermix. Cortesía del archivo Catalina Parra, Nueva York. Materiales de archivo 8. Cici Wu, Foreign Object #1 Fluffy Light (anonymous), 2018. Vidrio opalescente 16. Come out! A Liberation Forum for the hecho a mano, fotorreflectores CDS, Gay Community. Volumen 1, Número indicador LED blanco y naranja, switch, 5, septiembre/octubre de 1970. Producido batería recargable, placa electrónica, tarjeta por el Gay Liberation Front. Cortesía de memoria. 4.5 × 4.5 × 4.5 pulgadas. Archivo Moléculas Malucas. (11.43 × 11.43 × 11.43 cm). Cortesía de la artista y de 47 Canal Gallery. 17. Autobiography: In Her Own Image. Editado por Howardena Pindell. 9. Electronic Disturbance Theater Publicado por INTAR Gallery (Nueva 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, The Transborder York, Estados Unidos, 1988). Immigrant Tool, 2014. Técnica mixta (Motorola i455, software walkingtools. 18. “Come Out in Third World Lingo”. net, imágenes, poesía, audio, Creado por el grupo Third World Gay polietilentereftalato, felpa). Dimensiones Revolution Contratapa de Come Out!,

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158 159 Essay Image Credits Figure 10, p: 40 Figure 18, p: 70 Artist Page Images Catalina Parra, Fosa común, 1984. Electronic Disturbance Theater Figure 1, p: 12 − 13 Installation at Art Awareness Gallery, 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, The Transborder Alan Michelson, Earth’s Eye, 1990. Raúl Zurita, documentation of La vida Lexington, NY, USA. Courtesy Immigrant Tool (Ann Arbor: The Forty cast concrete markers, 22 × 14 × nueva, 1982. Courtesy the artist. Photo Archive, Catalina Parra, New York. University of Michigan, 2014), 69. 6 in. (56 × 36 × 15 cm) each. Installed by Ana María López. at Collect Pond Park in Lower Manhattan. Figure 11, p: 41 Figure 19, p: 71 Courtesy the artist. Figure 2, p: 16 − 17 Catalina Parra, Fosa común, 1984. Electronic Disturbance Theater Raúl Zurita, documentation of La vida Installation at Art Awareness Gallery, 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, The Transborder Amelia Bande performing “Make nueva, 1982. Courtesy the artist. Photo Lexington, NY, USA. Courtesy Immigrant Tool (Ann Arbor: The The Bed” at KJCC, New York, 2018. by Ana María López. Archive, Catalina Parra, New York. University of Michigan, 2014), 47. Courtesy the artist.

Figure 3, p: 20 Figure 12, p: 46 Figure 20, pp: 74 − 75 Caroline Key and KyungMook Kim, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, still from Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2001. Installation Raúl Zurita, documentation of La vida still from Grace Period, 2015. HD Video; Mouth to Mouth, 1975. Video, black and at Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Rio nueva, 1982. Courtesy the artist. Photo 68 minutes. Courtesy the artists. white; 8 minutes. Courtesy University Grande do Sul, Brazil. Courtesy Archive, by Ana María López. of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Catalina Parra, New York. Catalina Parra, Ornamentale Variationen, Pacific Film Archive. Figure 21, p: 79 1972. Mixed technique work, 28 × 22 in. Figure 13, p: 47 Cici Wu, Foreign Object #1 Fluffy (71 × 56 cm). Photo by Isabel Soler Figure 4, p: 23 Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2001. Installation Light (anonymous), 2018. Handmade Parra. Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictée (New at Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre, Rio opalescent glass, CDS photo-reflectors, New York. York: Tanam Press, 1982), 74 – 75. Grande do Sul, Brazil. Courtesy Archive, white + orange LED indicator, switch, Catalina Parra, New York. chargeable battery, electronic board, Cici Wu, Upon Leaving the White Dust, Figure 5, p: 26 memory cardboard, 4.5 × 4.5 × 4.5 in. 2017/2018. Ceramic, clay, handmade Rashaad Newsome, Shade Compositions, Figure 14, p: 50 (11.43 × 11.43 × 11.43 cm). Courtesy glass, silicone, plaster, white fabric, rice 2012. Documentation of performance at Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2005. Installation the artist and 47 Canal Gallery. Photo by paper, ink, plastic drop cloth, sponge, SFMOMA, October 4, 2012. Courtesy the in the Atacama Desert near Calama, Joerg Lohse. mop, Lehmann Gross Bahn train tracks, artist. Photo by Chris Brennan. Chile. Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, white LED, enameled wire, dupont New York. Figure 22, p: 84 connectors, arduino, video (30 min, Figure 6, p: 30 Renée Green, still from Partially Buried light data collected from the screening Caroline Key, still from Speech Memory, Figure 15, p: 51 Continued, 1997. Video, color, sound; 36 of unfinished film footageWhite 2007. 16mm film on video, color, sound; Catalina Parra, FOSA, 2005. Installation minutes. Courtesy the artist, Free Agent Dust from Mongolia by Theresa Hak 23 minutes. Courtesy the artist. in the Atacama Desert near Calama, Media, and Video Data Bank. Kyung Cha, 1980). Dimensions variable. Chile. Courtesy Archive, Catalina Parra, Photo by Joerg Lohse. Installed at 47 Figure 7, p: 31 New York. Figure 23, p: 88 Canal. Courtesy the artist and 47 Canal. Caroline Key, still from Speech Memory, Rummana Hussain, still from Living on 2007. 16mm film on video, color, sound; Figure 16, p: 61 the Margins, 1995. Video, color, sound; Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. 23 minutes. Courtesy the artist. Alan Michelson, Permanent Title, 1993. 28 minutes. Courtesy Rummana Hussain lab, documentation of Floodnet, 1998. Wax, muslin, charcoal, 144 × 144 × 9 in. Family Collection. Archived Net Art. Courtesy the artist. Figure 8, p: 32 (366 × 366 × 23 cm). Installation in Trade Caroline Key, still from Speech Memory, Routes, The New Museum, September Figure 24, p: 92 − 93 Raúl Zurita, documentation of Ni pena 2007. 16mm film on video, color, sound; 10 – November 7, 1993. Courtesy the artist. Raúl Zurita, documentation of La vida ni miedo, 1993. Installed in the Atacama 23 minutes. Courtesy the artist. nueva, 1982. Courtesy the artist. Photo Desert. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Figure 17, p: 66 by Ana María López. Guy Wenborne. Figure 9, p: 36 − 37 Electronic Disturbance Theater Raúl Zurita, documentation of La vida 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, Transborder Immigrant Figure 25, p: 97 Renée Green, still from Partially Buried nueva, 1982. Courtesy the artist. Photo Tool, 2007 – ongoing. Mixed media (i455 Third World Gay Revolution, “Come Out Continued, 1997. Video, color, sound; 36 by Ana Maria Lopez. Motorola, walkingtools.net software, in Third World Lingo,” back cover of Come minutes. Courtesy the artist, Free Agent images, poetry, audio, mylar, felt). Out! 1, no. 7, (December/January 1970 – 7). Media, and Video Data Bank. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist. Courtesy Archivo Moléculas Malucas.

160 161 Rummana Hussain, still from In Between, 1998. Video, color, sound; 28 minutes. Courtesy Rummana Hussain Family collection.

Rashaad Newsome, still from Icon, 2014. Video, color, sound; 9 minutes, 21 seconds. Courtesy the artist.

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, documentation of Aveugle Voix, 1975. Performed at 63 Bluxome Street, San Francisco, California. Courtesy University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Photo by Trip Callaghan.

162 After La vida nueva would not have would like to also give special thanks After La vida nueva no habría sido Marcela Guerrero (Assistant Curator); y been possible without the support to Farris Wahbeh, Tara Hart, and posible sin el apoyo de muchxs amigxs, Christiane Paul (Adjunt Curator of of many friends, lovers, colleagues, Michael Beiser of the Whitney Archives amantes, colegas y tutorxs. Queremos Digital Art). También queremos darle and advisors. We want to extend for their patience and assistance with expresar el más profundo agradecimiento un agradecimiento especial a Farris our deepest thanks and gratitude to our research. y aprecio por Ron Clark, Director del Wehbeh, Tara Hart y Michael Beiser de Ron Clark, Director of the Whitney Whitney Independent Study Program, los Whitney Archives por su paciencia Independent Study Program, for We give special thanks as well to por su compromiso con una rigurosa y asistencia con nuestra investigación. his commitment to rigorous intellectual Nazlı Ercan and Ella Viscardi for their práctica intelectual, y su guía para praxis and his guidance of our inspirational work on this catalog, and nuestro trabajo; a Sadia Shirazi, por su También agradecemos especialmente work; Sadia Shirazi, for her galvanizing to Hilary Greenbaum for her guidance estimulante liderazgo, su compromiso a Nazlı Ercan y Ella Viscardi por su leadership, commitment to the throughout the design process. We con la muestra, y su generosa dirección; trabajo inspirador en este catálogo, y a exhibition, and generous mentorship; would also like to thank Joshua Lubin- y a Stephen Sewell, por su paciencia Hilary Greenbaum por su dirección a l and Stephen Sewell, for his endless Levy for his editorial expertise and interminable y sus atentos comentarios. o largo del proceso de diseño. También patience and thoughtful feedback. incisive comments on our catalog. We Invaluables conversaciones que queremos agradecer a Joshua Lubin- Invaluable early discussions with Mezna are grateful for his patience and care. tuvimos al principio del proceso con Levy por su experiencia editorial y sus Qato and Jeannine Tang also helped We also extend our thanks to our Mezna Qato y Jeannine Tang ayudaron comentarios incisivos sobre nuestro to shape this exhibition, as did meetings translator, Ezequiel Zaidenwerg, por a darle forma a esta exhibición, al catálogo. Estamos agradecidxs por su with ISP visiting faculty members su talento y su flexibilidad. igual que nuestras conversaciones con paciencia y su cuidado. Extendemos Alex Alberro, Nora M. Alter, Alfredo docentes visitantes del ISP como las gracias también a nuestro traductor, Jaar, and Soyoung Yoon. Our gratitude goes to Jay Sanders, Alex Alberro, Nora M. Alter, Alfredo Ezequiel Zaidenwerg, por su talento Miriam Katzeff, Stella Cilman, Hana Jaar, y Soyoung Yoon. y flexibilidad. This exhibition emerged through many Tran, Witts, and the entire team at conversations with artists, archivists, Artists Space for their ongoing support. La muestra surgió de numerosos Expresamos nuestra gratitud curators, and scholars whose voices For generously loaning works to the diálogos con artistas, archivistas, cura- hacia Jay Sanders, Miriam Katzeff, Stella resonate throughout these pages. For exhibition, we would like to thank Juan dorxs e investigadorxs cuyas voces Cilman, Hana Tran, Witts, y todo el their invaluable insight we would like Queiroz, Experimental Arts Intermix, resuenan a lo largo de estas páginas. equipo de Artists Space por su apoyo. to thank Stephanie Cannizzo, Néstor Video Data Bank, Shireen Gandhy, Por su invaluable conocimiento, que- Por habernos prestado generosamente Latrónico, Inverna Lockpez, Tobi Maier, Shazmeen Hussain, and the Rummana remos agradecer a Stephanie Cannizzo; obras y materiales para la exhibición, Yong Soon Min, and Isabel Soler. We Hussain Family. Weiyi Chang would Néstor Latrónico; Inverna Lockpez; agradecemos a Juan Queiroz, Eperimental are grateful to all the artists in the show like to thank the Canada Council for the Tobi Maier; Yong Soon Min, e Isabel Arts Intermix, Video Data Bank, Shireen and their estates for facilitating and Arts and the British Columbia Arts Soler. Agradecemos a todxs lxs artistas Gandhy, Shazmeen Hussain, y la familia supporting this project. Council’s Early Career Development de la exhibición y a sus agentes de Rummana Hussain. Por su generoso Grant for their generous support. por haber colaborado y apoyado a apoyo, Weiyi Chang quisiera agradecer For their time and consideration of our este proyecto. al Canada Council for the Arts y el project we thank the staff and curators Finally, we would like to thank our British Columbia Arts Council’s Early at the Whitney Museum of American comrades in the ISP — Amaris, Andres, Por su tiempo y consideración, agra- Career Development Grant. Art, including Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Charisse, Che, Eliza, Fields, Jonas, decemos al staff y lxs curadorxs del Pratt Brown Director; Scott Rothkopf, Karlito, Kevin, Matt, Mariangela, Whitney Museum of American Art, Finalmente, agradecemos a nuestrxs Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Michaela, Michèle, Patricia, Philipp, incluyendo a Adam D. Weinberg camaradas del ISP (Amaris, Andres, Steve Crown Family Chief Curator; Selina, Sindhu, Thomas, Vikram, (Alice Pratt Brown Director); Scott Charisse, Che, Eliza, Jonas, Karlito, Chrissie Illes, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Viola, and Will — for their incalculable Rothkopf (Senior Deputy Director y Kevin, Matt, Mariangela, Michaela, Curator; Christopher Y. Lew, Nancy and support and without whom this Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Michèle, Patricia, Phillipp, Selina, Fred Poses Associate Curator; David exhibition would not have been possible. Curator); Chrissie Illes (Anne and Joel Sindhu, Thomas, Vikram, Viola y Will) Breslin, DeMartini Family Curator and Ehrenkranz Curator); Christopher Y. por el apoyo incalculable. Sin ellxs, Director of Curatorial Initiatives; Jane Lew (Nancy and Fred Poses Associate esta exhibición no habría sido posible. Panetta, Associate Curator and Director Curator); David Breslin (DeMartini of the Collection; Rujeko Hockley, Family Curator y Director of Curatorial Assistant Curator; Marcela Guerrero, Initiatives); Jane Panetta (Associate Assistant Curator; and Christiane Paul, Curator and Director of the Collection); Adjunct Curator of Digital Art. We Rujeko Hockley (Assistant Curator);

164 165 This catalog was published on the This publication was produced by occasion of the exhibition After La the Whitney Museum Independent vida nueva, August 7 – August 31, Study Program. 2020, hosted online by Artists Space, 11 Cortlandt Alley, New York, NY. Editor: Joshua Lubin-Levy The exhibition was curated by Weiyi Curatorial Instructor: Sadia Shirazi Chang, Sofia Jamal, Colleen O’Connor, Project Managers: Ella Viscardi, and Patricio Orellana, and will Joshua Lubin-Levy, and Sadia Shirazi include an online component with Designers: Nazlı Ercan and Hilary Greenbaum a performance by Amelia Bande Translator: Ezequiel Zaidenwerg as well as film screenings. All four Printer: Spencer Printing curators are 2019 – 20 Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellows of the Whitney ISBN: 978-0-87427-168-3 Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. Website: artistsspace.org/exhibitions/ after-la-vida-nueva Support for the Independent Study Program has been provided by Margaret Whitney Museum of American Art Morgan and Wesley Phoa, The Capital 99 Gansevoort St. Group Charitable Foundation, The New New York, NY 10014 York Community Trust, and the Whitney whitney.org Contemporaries through their annual Art Party benefit. Endowment support is provided by Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo, the Dorothea L. Leonhard Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas, the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, and the Helena Rubinstein Foundation.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, or otherwise (beyond that copying permitted by Section 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the Whitney Museum of American Art. Statements of fact and opinions are the sole responsibility of the authors alone and do not imply the endorsement of the publisher.

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After La vida nueva Book of Archives / Libro de los archivos 5

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2 3 After La vida nueva independent publications, alternative subjectivities and communi- Book of Archives ties were articulated outside of the regime of official media. Print media has been integral to the practices of many artists in This booklet is the second in a series of three publications pro- After La vida nueva. Visual poems by Raúl Zurita and Theresa Hak duced in tandem with the exhibition, After La vida nueva. The ma- Kyung Cha are reprinted here, sourced from magazines and books terials collected here trace the collective and transnational alliances that situated their work alongside the radical politics of experimental which inform After La vida nueva — the flights, crossings, and re- art and film. Other materials included in this book were originally parative motions. Included are archival materials, photographs, and produced cheaply and intended for wide distribution and reproduc- ephemera that have been central to our research, as well as repro- tion. Posters and signs by Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA), the ductions of newsletters, pamphlets, and magazines published by rev- Sahmat Collective, and Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. olutionary collectives, such as the Young Lords, Third World Gay lab demonstrate the intersection of art and activism that informed Revolution, and the HERESIES Collective. Together these materials the work of many of the artists in this exhibition. Early actions by reflect the cultural and political internationalism that coalesced in CADA in Chile often appropriated forms of popular media and ad- New York in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the divisions and ten- vertising. Traces of these interventions are echoed by EDT’s bill- sions that gave texture to its public manifestations. Through such board advertising the Transborder Immigrant Tool. Posters by the

After La vida nueva ra a sus manifestaciones públicas. Por medio de esas publicaciones, Libro de los archivos se articulaban subjetividades y comunidades alternativas fuera del régimen oficial de los medios. Este cuadernillo es el segundo de una serie de tres publicaciones Los medios impresos fueron centrales en la práctica de muchxs producidas en tándem con la muestra After La vida nueva. Los ma- artistas de After La vida nueva. Se reproducen poemas visuales de teriales recogidos aquí rastrean las alianzas colectivas y transnacio- Raúl Zurita y Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, tomados de revistas y libros nales de las que se ocupa After La vida nueva: los vuelos, los cruces que situaban sus obras en las políticas radicales del arte y el cine ex- y los movimientos de reparación. Se incluyen materiales de archivo, perimental. Otros materiales incluidos en este cuadernillo se produ- fotografías y recuerdos que desempeñaron un papel fundamental en jeron a bajo costo, con la intención de que circularan y fueran repro- nuestra investigación, así como reproducciones de boletines, pan- ducidos masivamente. Los posters y letreros de Colectivo Acciones fletos y revistas publicados por grupos revolucionarios, como los de Arte (CADA), del Sahmat Collective y del Electronic Disturbance Young Lords, Third World Gay Revolution y el colectivo HERESIES. Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab muestran los cruces entre arte y activismo En su conjunto, estos materiales reflejan el internacionalismo cultu- que caracterizan las intervenciones de muchxs de lxs artistas de esta ral y político que se consolidó en Nueva York durante las décadas de muestra. Las acciones de CADA en Chile con frecuencia se apropia- 1970 y 1980, así como las divisiones y tensiones que le dieron textu- ban formalmente de los medios masivos de comunicación y de la

4 5 Sahmat Collective against communalism were used to conceptually link groups performing across India and as a statement of solidarity with the ideas of Safdar Hashmi. The materials in this booklet have been passed from hand to hand, some bearing the impressions of their multiple readers. It is our hope that movement continues.

publicidad. Pueden observarse huellas de esas intervenciones en las vallas con que el EDT publicitó su Transborder Immigrant Tool. Los posters del Sahmat Collective contra el comunalismo se usaron para vincular grupos que actuaban en toda la India y como declaración de solidaridad con las ideas de Safdar Hashmi. Los materiales de este cuadernillo han pasado de mano en mano, y algunos conservan las huellas de sus muchxs lectorxs. Tenemos la esperanza de que ese movimiento continúe.

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Image Credits 10. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, “The 18. “Beat is gettin’ stronger…” Pa’lante Commentaire,” in Apparatus, 3, no. 4 (March 5 – 19, 1971): 2 – 3. 1. Betti Logan, “Double Takes: Chilean Cinematographic Apparatus: Selected Courtesy of Tamiment Library and Robert poet with a message offers some Writings, ed. Theresa Hak Kyung F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYU heavenly verse,” Queens Tribune, June Cha (New York: Tanam Press, 1980), Special Collections. 3, 1982, n.p. 270 – 271. 19. Alfredo Jaar, September 11, 1973 2. Nicanor Parra et al., “El 11. Yong Soon Min, “Comparing the (Black), 1974/2017. Pigment print. quebrantahuesos,” Manuscritos no. 1 Contemporary Experiences of Asian Courtesy the artist, New York. (1975): 17. American, South Korean, and Cuban Artists,” Artspiral, no. 2 (1989), n.p. 20. Alfredo Jaar, September 11, 1973, 3. Raúl Zurita, “La vida nueva,” 1974. Drawing. Courtesy the artist, Manuscritos, no. 1 (1975): 87. 12. Lula Mae Blocton et al., “Editorial New York. Statement,” in “Third World Women: The 4. Raúl Zurita, “La vida nueva,” in Politics of Being Other,” a special issue Anteparadise: A Bilingual Edition of HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on (Berkeley: University of California Press, Art and Politics 2, no. 4, (1979): 1. 1986), 1. 13. Ana Mendieta, image from Silueta 5. Colectivo Acciones de Arte (CADA), Series, in “Third World Women: The No+, 1983 – 1989. Digital print on paper, Politics of Being Other,” a special issue 12 × 16 in. (30.5 × 40.5 cm). Collection of HERESIES: A Feminist Publication of Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina on Art and Politics 2, no. 4, (1979): 89. Sofía, Madrid. Photo by Lotty Rosenfeld and Diamela Eltit. 14. Zarina, image of Wall (1979) published in “The Other Portfolio,” 6. Electronic Disturbance Theater in “Third World Women: The Politics 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, image of a protest from of Being Other,” a special issue of the Spanish Revolution (2011) HERESIES: A Feminist Publication on featuring a poster that reads “ERROR Art and Politics 2, no. 4, (1979): 69. 404 Democracia Not Found,” 2011, published in Ricardo Dominguez, “Error 15. Sahmat Collective, poster reading “In 404 A Hemifest,” emisférica 8, no 1 defense of our secular tradition,” 1993, (2011): https://hemisphericinstitute.org/ published in The Sahmat Collective: Art en/emisferica-81/8-1-dossier/e81-dossier- and Activism in India since 1989, eds. error-404-2011.html. Courtesy the artist. Jessica Moss and Ram Rahman (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2013) n.p. 7. Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, image from “Digital 16. “Come Out In Third World Lingo,” Mural Project,” Galería de la Raza, back cover of Come Out!: A Liberation San Francisco, September 3 – 23, 2010. Forum for the Gay Community 1, Courtesy the artist. no. 7, (December/January 1970 – 71): 24. Courtesy Archivo Moléculas Malucas. 8. Front cover of Autobiography: In Her Own Image, ed. by Howardena Pindell 17. “Third World Gay Revolution,” (New York: INTAR Gallery, 1988). Come Out!: A Liberation Forum for the Gay Community 1, no. 5 (September/ 9. Howardena Pindell, “Introduction,” in October 1970): 12 – 14. Courtesy Archivo Autobiography: In Her Own Image (New Moléculas Malucas. York: INTAR Gallery, 1988), 8 – 9.

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After La vida nueva Book of Gossip / Libro de los chismes Table of Contents

3 Preface 8 Cici Wu and Yong Soon Min 20 Juan Queiroz 30 Alan Michelson 37 Rashaad Newsome 48 El Estallido / The Outbreak by Amelia Bande

1 2 3 After La vida nueva the New Testament, but substitutes the familiar moral and Book of Gossip spiritual instruction with speculative records of future imaginaries. It includes conversations and texts that expand the Over there, where the other person lives, is not here where questions, histories, and narratives taken up in the exhibi- I am, though I can perhaps bring others close by soliciting tion, serving both as an archive for the under-historicized mo- them to build a story with me and so seek to close the gaps ments represented in this exhibition as well an elaboration separating all of us by letting excitation bridge the distance. upon ways of being in the not-yet-here. While Book of Archives contains historical documents — Judith Butler, “Solidarity/Susceptibility”1 and printed materials central to various activist movements, Book of Gossip extends upon this archive through oral his- Book of Gossip is the third booklet in the catalogue for After tories. Cici Wu and Yong Soon Min discuss the relationship La vida nueva. The title riffs off the Book of the Gospels in between art and politics, Asian and Asian American activism and solidarity, and the legacy of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

1 Judith Butler, “Solidarity/Susceptibility,” Social Text 137, vol. 36, no. 4 Juan Queiroz talks about queer activism in South America, (December 2018), 4. the creation of the Moléculas Malucas webpage and archive,

After La vida nueva gelios del Nuevo Testamento, pero reemplaza la consabida Libro de los chismes instrucción moral y espiritual con registros especulativos de i- maginarios futuros. Incluye conversaciones y textos que am- Allá, donde vive la otra persona, no es donde estoy yo, aun- plían las preguntas, historias y relatos recogidos en la muestra, que tal vez pueda acercar a otrxs si les pido que construyan y funciona como archivo de los momentos insuficientemente conmigo un relato para así llenar las grietas que nos separan a historizados que se representan en la exhibición, a la vez todxs, dejando que la excitación zanje esa distancia. que desarrollan maneras posibles de ocupar lo que está aún por venir. — Judith Butler, “Solidarity/Susceptibility”1 Mientras que el segundo cuadernillo se componía de doc- umentos históricos y materiales impresos de gran importan- Libro de los chismes es el tercer cuadernillo que compone cia para distintos movimientos activistas, El libro de los chis- After La vida nueva. El título juega con los libros de los evan- mes le suma a este archivo historias orales. Cici Wu y Yong Soon Min discuten la relación entre arte y política, activismo

1 Judith Butler, “Solidarity/Susceptibility,” Social Text 137, vol. 36, no. 4 y solidaridad asiática y asiático estadounidense, y el legado (diciembre, 2018), 4. de Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Juan Queiroz habla de activismo and the politics of archival practice. Alan Michelson discuss- tions lend a nuanced and intimate texture to political events, es the material and ideological aftermath of settler colonial- organizing, and activism. They also, as the reader will find, ism in the United States, the relationship between human assert the crucial role of gossip as a means of communion and geological time and land, and the re-appropriation of and solidarity-building, mapping a network of connections Western artistic practices for decolonization. Rashaad New- and overlapping histories centered in and around New York. some reflects on the globalization of ballroom culture, the im- Often understood disparagingly as frivolous and idle talk, the portance of affective bonds in community building, and the practice of gossip (as these speakers reveal) opens up ways translation of the Black vernacular. Amelia Bande contributes of relating outside of the patriarchal, hetero-normative, and a performance text reflecting on the tumultuous present at capitalist regime.2 the crossroads of the Chilean protests that began in October 2019, the ongoing global disaster induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the surge of activist energy directed against police brutality and systemic racism.

Conducted over Zoom, WhatsApp, and email given the 2 See Silvia Federici, “On the Meaning of ‘Gossip,’” in Witches, Witch-Hunting enforced conditions of social distancing — these conversa- and Women (Oakland: PM Press, 2018), 69 – 83.

queer en Sudamérica, la creación de la página web y archivo WhatsApp y correo electrónico debido a la necesidad de Moléculas malucas, y las políticas de la práctica archivística. mantener la distancia social, aportan una textura íntima y Alan Michelson discute las secuelas materiales e ideológicas matizada a los acontecimientos políticos, la militancia y el ac- de la colonización de los Estados Unidos, la relación entre tivismo. Además, como podrán comprobar lxs lectorxs, afir- el tiempo humano y el geológico y la tierra, y la traducción man el papel crucial del chisme como forma de comunión y transcultural. Rashaad Newsome reflexiona sobre la globali- construcción de solidaridades, al trazar una red de conexio- zación de la cultura del ballroom, la importancia de los lazos nes e historias que se superponen, localizadas en Nueva York afectivos en la construcción de comunidades y la traducción y sus alrededores. Con frecuencia considerada frívola y ocio- del habla de la jerga coloquial de lxs negrxs. Amelia Bande sa de manera despectiva, la práctica del rumor (como revelan colabora con un texto performático que reflerxiona sobre la estas personas) permiten formas de relacionarse por fuera del tumultuosa encrucijada de las protestas en Chile que empeza- regímen patriarcal, heteronormativo y capitalista.2 ron en octubre de 2019, el desastre producido por la pandemia de COVID-19, que aún continúa, y el estallido de activismo contra la brutalidad policial y el racismo sistémico. 2 Vid. Silvia Federici, “On the Meaning of ‘Gossip’” en Witches, Witch-Hunting Estas conversaciones, que tuvieron lugar por Zoom, and Women (Oakland: PM Press, 2018), 69 – 83.

6 7 On Wednesday, April 1, 2020, we spoke with artists Cici Wu and Yong Soon Min about politics and poetics, activism and organizing in the 1980s and now, and the legacy of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s life and work. The following is an edited excerpt of our conversation.

Curators Do you think of your work as political? What does it mean to be making political work?

Cici Wu For me, making a political work means that the artist would have their own definition and consciousness towards justice first. But more importantly, artworks should actually have the potential to engage with realities — meaning, as a cata- lyst to create real changes in a society. That is my reflection upon what it means for an artwork to be political. However, this is not my essential concern. I would rather be more interested in imagining and practicing an artistic life that in- spires people to think about politics differently.

Yong Soon I got stuck with the first question, because the older I’ve be- Min come, the more I know and the less I know. I used to quote Godard a lot because he was eminently quotable, and he was my art mentor for a while in the 1970s. He had a quote, something like, “photography is not a reflection of what is ‘the real’ but the reality of that reflection.” I thought that this was a kind of a truth that I adhered to, especially now, more than ever before, with so much disinformation and misinfor- mation. It’s crucial for us to strive for the truth, but also to strive for truth with power. It’s the search for truth in relation to power. I was included in the exhibition at SoHo 20 that was curated by Kellie Jones in 1986 that got a positive review in The New York Times. I was interested in bringing these Ko- reans that were part of Young Koreans United (YKU), an organization based in Queens that I had been working with. The piece that I made for that exhibit, Half Home, I dedicated to this organization because I learned so much from

8 9 them about Korea.1 YKU were a militant Korean organization small or big movements for social justice and liberation that that was closely linked to the Min Joong movement and they artists have participated in. When you participate, you’re still had a great library that I practically lived at. I couldn’t read an artist, but the things that you care about and produce, the most of the books, which were in Korean, but they had some productions that you make in that dimension, are completely English translated books that were important to me. A group different. You become anonymous. These dimensions can came over to the gallery and when they saw the work, there have their own time, speed, and value. I think it’s very im- were no comments afterwards. I gathered that they were in- portant to try to imagine these possibilities and share them different to my installation, that the work wasn’t agitprop with others, slowly. enough for them, and that they had somewhat of a narrow view of artwork that had to be useful in their activism. YKU YSM The first clear sense that the Asian American movement im- were involved with the activist side of the Min Joong move- pacted me was in New York City post - 1981, the Whitney ment that was useful for the rallies and demos and so on. ISP, and after my first teaching job. I’m fond of saying that I That was one of the first instances where I realized that the cut my political teeth on that politics, and it all happened work that I show in a gallery is not necessarily for every- by chance. I got this position by referral from a friend as Ad- body. I realized that there’s a limit to how much I can reach ministrative Coordinator for Asian American Arts Alliance out with my work in general. (which used to be called Alliance for Asian American Art & Culture before they became an official 501c3 nonprofit) that CW I was curious about the first time you had a clear moment used to be on West 13th Street where the Whitney Museum of political consciousness. For me, maybe I would say very now resides. It was located inside a commercial printing clearly and strongly, it’s the recent social movement in place called Expedi, in the Meatpacking District. I had to Hong Kong. It really changed me a lot. I went through many walk through carcasses to my office, which consisted of a emotional moments and learned how to fight collectively. desk and filing cabinet that were constantly being moved Definitely an inspiring moment for me to think about the around. Each year, we organized two multi-disciplinary pro- potential of art and activism in a different spectrum, because grams, including “Roots to Reality,” but shortly after our Hong Kong doesn’t have a developed discourse and vocabu- second year other organizations, like Asian Cinevision and lary compared with New York. I started to imagine a celes- Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, told us that what they really tial map that features different dimensions and temporalities need was an organization that would provide advocacy and for artists to travel. One of the dimensions is the capitalistic regrants, not competitive programming. So we changed our dimension that is constructed by museums, galleries, bien- name and our mission. It opened my eyes to a lot of issues, nials, almost everything visible in the existing art world. But especially how important it was to foster the development at the same time, there can be other dimensions, for exam- of Asian American arts broadly, and to be collaborative with ple, like the Gwangju Uprising, communist movement in the other minoritized groups in actuality and in spirit. The 1980s Philippines, or the Hong Kong protests, and all kinds of were such an important period for people like me. It was a matter of raising consciousness about identity within a certain kind of politics that dealt with looking at the whole art 1 Michael Brenson, “Art: 2 Looks At Cleve Gray’s Work”, The New York Times, January 9, 1987. https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/09/arts/art-2-looks-at-cleve- scene, like the Guerrilla Girls, and grasping how little rep- gray-s-works.html resentation of women existed in the arts and likewise that

10 11 there was virtually no representation of Asian American art- as me with an undergraduate degree. I could tell immedi- ists. That’s how Godzilla came to fruition, too, although they ately that she was so much more advanced. I mean, in the never became an official organization. We had some events show, she showed a video while I showed etchings. We im- and some shows. It was such a diverse group… a lot of art- mediately latched on to one another as we were the only ists just wanted to get together on a social basis and share Koreans in that show, and in the whole art department for work with slide slams and so on. There was another group that matter. called Seoro (meaning ‘together’), which was a Korean artist She had been such a gracious person and was somebody group that formed in the late 1980s. We were the ones who who I respected. But at the same time, I was concerned that were responsible for the exhibition at Queens Museum I was going to be sucked into her orb. I didn’t want to copy called, Across the Pacific: Contemporary Art of Korean and her work, and I was still stubbornly trying to find my own Korean-American Artists. We targeted the Queens Museum way, my own artistic direction. So, in my work I kept my dis- because Queens has the larger portion of Korean residents tance, but I also realized that I was very influenced by her. of all the boroughs. We also picked Jane Farber to curate I also became a cinephile and started spending more and Korean American artists and Young Chul Lee to curate Ko- more of my time at the Pacific Film Archive. I knew most rean artists. Not only did the exhibition travel to Korea, but of the people, including Theresa, who worked there, so I historically, it was the first instance of a Korean diaspora got in for free to all the films. They had a great program of exhibition. Another group of artists that I became involved Third World Cinema as well as French New Wave. It was an with were Korean artists spearheaded by Mo Bahc.2 He es- amazing new world that opened up for me. I think that also tablished Minor Injury, an alternative gallery in his neigh- influenced what I was doing, because for my thesis exhibition borhood, Greenpoint. He and several other people organized at the University Art Museum, I did an installation in 1979 the show about Min Joong art that was at Artists Space in called Storyline that was like a filmstrip. I know that Theresa 1988. We had invited a major curator from Korea to write saw the work, because afterwards she invited me to be in about this significant exhibition.3 the annual exhibition at San Francisco Art Institute. That was also after both of our first returns to South Korea. I received CW How did you and Theresa [Hak Kyung Cha] know each other? a postcard from her and her brothers’ trip in which she describes feeling alienated, always being stared at, and at the YSM Theresa and I first met in 1975 at an exhibition at the Univer- same time as if she was at “home.” I shared that exact range sity Art Museum (now Berkeley Art Museum) we had work of feelings and felt that she was like an older sister who I in as a result of both being awarded a prize. Theresa was two really admired. years older than me, but because she had double majored When you ask about a community of artists in the 1980s, first in literature, then art, she graduated at the same time I wonder how her advanced artwork would reflect some of the identity politics that was very much in the air then. Dictée came out in 1982, and Asian American women artists and the 2 Born Bahc Chulho, Mo Bahc was his self-identified name while in New York City. Later, during his Seoul years, he became Bahc Yiso. critical sector didn’t know what to make of it at first because they felt that the radical book reached out to an audience of 3 Min Joong Art: A New Cultural Movement from Korea, Artist Space, New York, NY, September 29 – November 5, 1988. http://old.artistsspace.org/exhibi- avant-garde white artists, mostly. Then, Writing Self, Writing tions/ming-joong-art-a-new-cultural-moment-from-korea. Nation came out in 1994. That was the first time that Asian

12 13 American writers and critics had spoken at a conference C Cici, can you speak to us about why you were so drawn to [about Dictée] and they addressed in what ways it did really Theresa’s work? You studied filmmaking in school and much reach out to them.4 They understood it. The book was genre of your own work takes up a similar concern with structur- defying and far-reaching in such a way that a diverse com- alist materialist filmmaking. How has Theresa’s work influ- munity of people ended up responding to it. There is a book enced or changed the way that you approach filmmaking? recently published by Cathy Park Hong called Minor Feel- ings, where she devotes a chapter to Theresa and how [Dictée] CW I was drawn to Cha’s work because I sensed familiarity. Also, spoke to her because of [Theresa’s] treatment of the English I saw the difference between her and other diaspora artists language (as well as French and Korean) and how she her- in my generation. I wanted to bring her back, in a way, to self struggles and plays with that language, and Cathy felt provoke some reflection and re-think about how to approach that she could really connect because she also had a strange cultures that were once interrupted. Perhaps it’s not about love-hate relationship with English. her work as a result, but it’s more about the way she ap- proaches what was ‘real’ in those cultures. She is definitely CW How do you perceive Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s position as an inspiration for a lifetime. Her influence, to me, is not lim- an artist in relation to activism? ited to only one medium, such as film, but more about forming my own interpretation of deconstruction, or perceiving YSM If we can use Dictée in a speculative way, I think she would the film camera as a spiritual tool… be very involved. She made an outright decision to deal with women through the structure of [Dictée] which consists of C Cici, your work as an archivist and archival researcher is a nine Greek muses as chapter headings as if that in itself is a crucial part of your practice. How has Theresa’s work influ- feminist stance and an intervention in the face of patriarchy. enced you and your archival process, and how you think Under each heading, Theresa relates real women’s stories, about your archival work? for instance, the martyrs Joan of Arc and Yu Guan Soo, who played a central role in the Korean liberation struggle during CW I started to work as an archivist, say, five years ago. Working the Japanese colonial period. She also includes stories of her as an archivist at Asia Art Archive in America opened a mother, who’s life covers the colonial period as well as the door to me, it was an introduction to recent art history in Korean War and the overthrow of South Korea’s first pres- Asia. Because of the specific research projects that I worked ident. Her deep knowledge about European theory as well on, I’ve especially learned more about recent Chinese art as Korean history is paramount in her ability to elicit and history. When I saw very interesting artworks made by art- poeticize about women’s struggles. Her Korean background ists who are no longer visible, I often imagined: what if I shaped her orientation to life, and I believe that she would entered art education through studying their artworks and be very supportive of movements like the Min Joong move- philosophy? At the same time, I question the archive in rela- ment as it largely democratized South Korea. tion to authorship in general, meaning, the power and confinement imposed by institutions, and the human egotistical desire for visibility. I encountered [Theresa’s] work through 4 See Elaine Kim and Norma Alarcon, Writing Self, Writing Nation: A Collec- tion of Essays on Dictée by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, (Berkeley: Third Woman her poems and writings first, and then after I moved to New Press, 1994). York in 2015, I learned that she had a piece, White Dust

14 15 From Mongolia, that was never finished. I started to look wow, this is real. I learned a bit later that this dust migrated at [Theresa’s] work through White Dust From Mongolia and all the way from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia to reach Korea. then went back to her earlier video works and also her This migration happens regularly, and the wind can carry it sketches. She always had this planning sketch of how the all the way to California. camera movement would work. She had this idea of in-camera editing, so it is always about setting up the camera po- CW I was also fascinated by her statement about the piece, about sition and making the work without post-production edit- how she perceived Asia as whole cultures. She has this real- ing. I was also interested in this technique. There were a ly soft-hearted kind of perspective, of how she perceives cul- lot of other overlapping interests in terms of the visual lan- tural differences, where the end result of it is not to separate guage that she used — the atmosphere and the feeling that them, but to bridge them. From there, I think I understood her work naturally has, that has always been intriguing to that sometimes there might be no equivalents between cul- me. I had access to this piece, White Dust From Mongolia, tures, and instead of trying to find equivalents, we may go because I contacted Berkeley Film Archive as an archivist, to the bottom level of values, and seek what has been im- so I actually had the chance to see the piece for the first time portant to a culture; the way of life and its enjoyment. When in my office with my colleague. I think I started thinking cultures find there are no equivalents, they can start learning about her piece through two lenses, as both an archivist and from each other. an artist. When I was working on Upon Leaving the White Dust, my YSM In a way, the dust can be a bridge that travels very freely... colleague and I were discussing mostly how reconstruction, as a particular kind of art practice, challenges the nature of CW …through these internal histories between Asian countries, authorship and copyright. More importantly, it constructs a of course, affected by the Cold War. Yeah, I think she had a subtle relationship between two realities, against the unique- very unique view of approaching not only South Korea and ness of a work of art. I am interested in inserting myself North Korea, but also extending this view to the whole of into the past because I’m fascinated with the myth of time Asia. I was very touched by her view. At the time, I was also and built-in memory in one’s body. Working with archives longing for a view like that to support me in terms of being as an artist provides me the path to intervene in history, as a person or an artist, an individual, in New York, because much as inviting the past — human or non-human — to have in a way, I did (and do) feel culturally very distant from my a voice in the present. own homeland because of the Cultural Revolution.

YSM I just wanted to add here that when I first became aware of C Can we ask one last question: you mentioned earlier the [White Dust From Mongolia] in the 1980s, it didn’t register strong reception of Theresa’s work by other Koreans. Do you as anything particular to me. But when I went to Gwangju, remember anything else about that? Perhaps how you felt South Korea, in 2002 — to prepare for the biennial exhibi- that people related to that work? Because, you said that ini- tion, THERE: Sites of Korean Diaspora that I curated — on tially when Dictée was released it was kind of seen as avant- one specific day, I couldn’t see the sun at all as dust was ev- garde and people couldn’t really get it until Writing Self, erywhere. It had fallen on everything and you could scrape Writing Nation came out. a bit of the dust from any surface outside. And I thought,

16 17 YSM Dictée, like the other published book of hers, was later subtle references and struck a chord with them. I’ve seen her recognized by her Korean community. I want to recall one after some performances at Berkeley or in San Francisco where performance that Theresa did in Steve Laub’s grad class. a cluster of Koreans approached her to let her know that The audience consisted of her fellow students in that class they were with her and got it. and me. I wasn’t in that class. Her props were spare. She sat down and she had a plate and an apple and a knife. She Yong Soon Min (b. 1953, Seoul) engages interdisciplinary proceeded to peel the apple. I was the only fellow Korean sources to examine issues of representation and cultural there, and I could relate to it on several different levels. It’s identities and the intersection of history and memory. She is a custom in traditional Korean culture that, after a family Professor Emerita at UC Irvine and has served on the Board dinner, it’s usually the woman’s role to get the family to- of Directors of Asian American Arts Alliance, national Board gether and she’d peel an apple a certain way before serving of Directors of CAA, and Korean American Museum. Min is it. It was also a custom that the woman peels it all at once a recipient of the Fulbright Senior Research Grant, Anony- which means that you go around, in a continuous circle, mous Was a Woman Award, Guggenheim Foundation grant and you try not to break that continuity. It was said that and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Visual Artist a woman who can peel it perfectly in that manner would Award in New Genre. Significant exhibitions include The marry well. It reminds me of a segment from an Ozu film, Decade Show, New Museum; decolonization, Bronx Muse- Late Spring, (which I appropriated for one of my videos, um; the 10th Havana Bienal; and the 7th Gwangju Biennale, Overseas / at sea). The film tells a story about a father and curated by Okwui Enwezor. Min participated in the Whitney daughter relationship, where the daughter has finally found Independent Study Program in 1981. someone and she’s going to get married and the father is peeling the apple in a circular manner when the peeling Cici Wu’s biography can be found in the first booklet of breaks. It’s at this point where he but also we, the view- this catalog. ers realize deep within that his daughter’s going to be leaving him. That’s all intimated by the peeling of the apple. Switching gears back to her performance, Theresa peeled the apple in a competent and controlled manner. Then she proceeded to cut it into all these quarters and then pass the plate around. Her pacing, calmness, and everything about it was so compelling, it had her audience in her thrall. Her silent performance brought out a certain kind of awareness of the extra meanings for me as a Korean. The effect was not necessarily about a nationalism where you’re so glad to be a Korean above all, but a certain kind of sensitivity and an understanding. I think that’s the impact that she had on other Koreans who experienced her other performances. The formal qualities, including her manner and the cadenc- es integrated within the content of her work, resonated her

18 19 The following dialogue is excerpted from conversations we had with Juan Queiroz — a queer archivist, activist, scholar, and editor from Buenos Aires — through email and WhatsApp audio messages in May 2020. The exchange took place in Spanish and was translated into English by Patricio Orellana.

Curators How did you begin your archive and the web page Moléculas Malucas?

Juan In 2015, I felt the need to create an archive that would pre- Queiroz serve and rescue the memory of our lesbian, trans, and gay ancestors. I was doing research about the Frente de Libera- ción Homosexual in Argentina, visiting activists from the 1970s who still had ephemera and documents full of historical information about the movement, and about the vida marica [fag life] from the period of anti-homosexual persecution, when cops would repress our community violently. I saw a huge potential that was at risk of disappearing in the near future if nothing was done. But the archival drive had always been present in my life. I have been gathering materials related to my homosexual journey since I was 15 — pamphlets, posters, books, magazines, and other documents of gay movements. Early on, I started to preserve and take care of them. In 1984, when I was 15, I came out to my father, who I was living with at the time. He was involved in politics, so our house was always full of left-wing activists, and homophobic comments, both by him and his comrades, were very common. He saw my coming out — his oldest son, a faggot — as an affront to his machismo. In part, that is what it was. After that, my life turned into hell. He controlled me like a policeman. He didn’t allow phone calls from my male friends. I had to cut off my contact with friends, some of whom were dying of Aids and I was not even able to say goodbye. And I want to point out that when I write Aids, I don’t capitalize it, which I see as a symbolic gesture of

20 21 undermining the power of the illness, which was and is of them, I would say, “thank you for joining our cause, how still causing harm and killing so many people in my com- many trans employees do you have in this company?” munity. When I said undermining I don’t mean to mini- On top of the project of the archive, I also had the idea of mize the disease but to treat it less respectfully, because it creating a publication about queer archives that I would call massacred my community. In that context, in a secret way, Les Amorales (amorales [amoral] was the term used by the I started to collect ephemera about homosexuality — papers police and the cis-hetero mass media when they refered to that I would get in my clandestine yires [cruises] through our identities). But when I was about to launch it, I found teteras [places for queer anonymous sex] and the streets of out about another project with the same title, so I changed Buenos Aires. I kept these papers hidden in my room, in a the name to Moléculas Malucas, which comes from a small tiny secret space between a drawer and the floor. The Argen- study and activist group created by Néstor Perlongher and tine gay publication Diferentes (1984 – 1986), which I still Jorge Beloqui in São Paulo in 1982. In March 2020, we were have, was my way of escape — the only reading material that surprised by the pandemic and the quarantine, so I decided didn’t make me feel that I was a weirdo. From a visit to the to start the publication in virtual format — not only because bathrooms of Retiro Station in 1982, I still have a dirty pam- of these limitations, but also because I wanted something phlet addressed to gays that gave information about how to that would have a longer life than a paper publication. I act in the event they were detained by the police. I was a kid, brought in my friend, the queer and feminist activist Mabel and that warning, about the dangers of being caught, left a Bellucci, to be part of a collective editorial board, and to- mark of terror in my mind. I had not had homosexual rela- gether we’ve been calling LGBT scholars, journalists, trans tionships yet, but I was starting to understand that I was not sex workers, and activists to share texts and testimonies. simply confused, I was a homosexual. I kept that pamphlet Often we use images from my collection and other archives. as an omen. From that moment on, everything I saw that con- Mabel’s queer and feminist archive is absolutely crucial, connected to gay, lesbian, or trans issues, I would keep it. That is taining collections of feminist magazines from Buenos Aires something that I still do today. in the 1980s and 1990s, materials about the fight to legal- Last year, in mid-2019, I returned to the idea of creating ize abortion, anarchist publications, and documents on the an independent archive, one that didn’t depend on an insti- LGBT community since the 1980s. tution. I feel an irresistible need to share these materials, to make them public. I think of it as archive-activism. At the C In the past, you’ve mentioned that an LGBT documentation same time, letting it be a personal endeavor which does not center should not be handled by cis-hetero people, because depend on any institution, I retain the right to refuse access although they can take care of the materials, to some extent to homophobic people or, to give a specific example, film or they don’t have the same bond with the material that you advertising production companies that want to poke around might, as a member of that community. our histories but only with commercial interests. That kind of anthropologic cis-hetero gaze over our history upsets me. JQ Absolutely. I think that the bond you have with the ma- And the capitalist exploitation of our history of persecution terials impacts the type of care you can provide. Imagine is scandalous. It is something I saw when I visited New a Black movement archive managed by white people, or York during Stonewall’s 50th anniversary. All the shops in an archive of the Jewish community managed by a Roman Manhattan were full of pride flags. Every time I entered one Catholic apostolic person. Imagine if the Lesbian Herstory

22 23 Archives were managed by heterosexual women. There is ceal or disguise or make their sexuality clandestine, simply something there that doesn’t seem right. I think that the because they were beneficiaries of that regime of oppression sexually dissident subjectivity of the people that manage an against our dissidence. The relationship that I feel towards LGBTQ archive is a crucial contribution; there is a type of a document about the abolition of anti-homosexuality edicts knowledge based on personal experience, a sort of com- cannot be the same as someone who only saw that reality in munity and kinship one can form with the archives of the distance, maybe as a witness, but not as a participant. people that have lived, and suffered, similar histories to These materials have different inscriptions for us than for one’s own. cis-hetero people. Some institutions that hold these mate- Going back to the question, I think that a document re- rials distribute them with watermarks, which I think is a lated to our history has a meaning, an echo that impacts symbolic appropriation of our history — something I oppose us differently. Certain signs, representations, documents, or categorically. Archives and institutions are supposed to take texts that articulate tensions and a history of oppression will care of those materials, but not put marks that connote prop- never be understood the same way by a cis-hetero person. erty. That is why I want to create an archive of materials This doesn’t mean that there are gays, lesbians, and trans related to our history that is accompanied and taken care of people who can’t have fascist ideas. There are also gays and by people and scholars who are steeped in that reality from lesbians who are transphobic. It also does not mean that a their personal experiences, or genealogically and emotion- cis-hetero person in a public institution will always mistreat ally related to the struggles of our ancestors. these materials. And, also, it does not mean that there are no public institutions such as universities or public libraries C Is there any specific practice that you have in mind when that can preserve our materials well. But they will definitely you differentiate these modes of archiving? relate to the materials with the distance of a history that is not theirs. JQ I classify according to the names of persons, movements, In my case, I can understand the clandestine aspect of or publications. When it is a personal archive, I use their the dirty pamphlet I found in Retiro, and all the work and names, but only if the people themselves used their names risk implied in distributing it, because clandestinity and fear when they were activists. Otherwise, I only use initials. There marked and ruined a part of my life in my family home and, are cases in which we cannot fully confirm that someone in a city like Buenos Aires, where our youth was marked by was able to come out, or whether they would have chosen an eternal sense of affective precariousness, solitude, and a different way of life. My instinct is to do all possible re- orphanhood. When I was 16, for example, I was detained search, uncover all the information possible, because there by the police because I was talking to a boy at night on the might be a clue in what I discover that fits into the larger corner of Ayacucho and Santa Fe streets, a crucial point of puzzle of our history, which is oftentimes so hard to piece cruising in Buenos Aires. In 1985, I was taken to the police together. So, sometimes I try to go as far as I can to find miss- station by the Morality Division of the Police alongside a ing information, like last names — sometimes even Google group of locas [fags] after a raid at a club called Line. What can take you to interesting places related to our history that pamphlet said resonates so much with part of my his- when you begin by searching only for that missing name. tory, and a cis-hetero person will not understand that, no But, on the other hand, I feel like keeping some obstacles matter how hard they try. They never had to hide or con- in the archive helps preserve the nature of queer history,

24 25 because that is what gave it its identity — the omissions, have a history of destruction, and they speak about their the deletions, the silences caused by fear — and respecting fragility over time. those omissions is to some extent respecting our history. In part we survived our unlawfulness and persecution through C Can you tell us about the Third World Gay Revolution group. enigma, and that enigmatic past shaped our history, a his- How did you find out about them? tory of complexity. Sometimes I think that refusing to respond to external demands for transparency, clarity, and JQ I was doing research on the Frente de Liberación Homosex- overexposure — all of which insist on revealing the keys of ual in Argentina. In the only issue of a publication called our silence — can be a form of resistance, a queer mode of ar- Homosexuales from July 1973 — which is a unique archival chiving. As an example, it happened to me that one of the piece — they reproduce the TWGR [Third World Gay Revo- archives that I acquired was given to me on the condition lution] manifesto, “Los oprimidos no se convertirán en o- that some of its documents (which include personal sto- presores,” which was credited as authored by “Grupo de ries) can only be made public in 30 years, that is, when the Homosexuales Negros y Latinoamericanos de Nueva York,” person who gives the archive to me, as well as her siblings, but in the end it said “Third World Gay Revolution.” That will likely be dead. rather ostentatious name and the gesture of crossing bor- I would also like to point out that, in my country, queer ders caught my attention, so I started to look into its ori- archives have a much lower survival rate than other social gin. Without it being my initial intention, I ended up tracing and political movements. They are much more fragile than the group’s chronology, from its origin to its dissolution. I any other archive. The genocide caused by Aids — due to the plan to publish this story on the Moléculas Malucas website criminal inactivity of politicians and the complicit silence soon.1 Until now, nobody has bothered to write about that of society, the church and the mass media — took away hun- small group. dreds of our ancestors. These were times in which same- sex marriage was unthinkable, and even less that we could C How did those publications come to Argentina? have kids. Many times, if someone was sick, they would kick their partners out of the house. People were buried in JQ There were two Argentine members that were key in the an utmost solitude. All documents, photos, letters, ephem- formation of the group, Juan Carlos Vidal and Néstor La- era belonging to these people were thrown into the garbage. trónico. The group was short lived (1970 – 1971). Latrónico In many cases (especially among the middle class) parents, and Vidal came to Buenos Aires separately, though both in siblings and relatives of those who died would keep only a 1973, and then joined the Grupo Eros of the Frente de Lib- handful of documents — house deeds, bank statements, car eración Homosexual, bringing along their experience in the ownership titles. The rest of the papers were thrown out, as TWGR and other groups in the gay movement both in terms they were stains on the image of the family. There was also of activism and graphic design. That experience influenced real terror, especially under military dictatorships, because having any paper that was evidenced of sexual deviance could send you to jail for months. People had to go into sexual exile, they had to travel with the least possible evidence 1 This story will be made available at of their sexuality. These are the reasons why our archives https://www.moleculasmalucas.com/post/el-third-world-gay-revolution

26 27 the clandestine publication Somos,2 which was based on an C You also found letters written by Juan Carlos. Did you find idea by Latrónico. anything interesting about the creation of the group in those letters? C Then the group morphed to one called, Latin Gay Revolu- tion. How did that happen? JQ Juan Carlos Vidal and Néstor Latrónico arrived in NY in 1968. First they lived in the Lower East Side, where they JQ The Latin Gay Revolution only lasted for a few months had friends from Puerto Rico, and were in touch with mem- and was created simultaneously with the dissolution of the bers of the Young Lords. Then they moved to Brooklyn, TWGR. Latrónico and Vidal created it, and it was them and where Juan Carlos had a silk screen machine, and he started other people from Cuba and Puerto Rico. They only pro- doing serigraphy works for the Young Lords, which he did duced one document, a public letter addressed to white from 1969 to 1971. Actually, “What We Want, What We Be- American gays, where they questioned them about their lieve” (1970), their first proclamation with the Third World blindness to the oppressions suffered by Third World com- Gay Revolution group, is based on similar platforms by the pañeros, and to the repression of gays in Castro’s Cuba. After Black Panthers from 1966 and the Young Lords from 1969, that experience, some members of this group, in April 1972, but adapted to the realities of gay, trans and lesbians peo- produced Afuera, a journal directed by Latrónico and Vidal, ple. In his letters from New York to his family from 1971, with a clearer activist perspective, with texts about sexual Juan Carlos announced that he was creating a group with politics, but also illustrations and poems. And there they revolutionary artists and writers from Latin America and published a statement by the FLH of Argentina, which they that they intended to publish a magazine. That magazine is would join the year after, when they returned to the country. Afuera, which they published the year after. Juan Carlos thought that true change could only happen with a popular C We’re really interested in the use of the term “Third World.” revolution, and he supported explicitly armed struggle. The Were there more gay activists using it around the 1970s visuals he made for the TWGR makes this posture clear. and 1980s?

JQ At least in Argentina, the only time I saw it used was in the Juan Queiroz (b. 1969, Buenos Aires) currently co-manages texts by the TWGR. They also used it when they translated the online publication Moléculas Malucas (moleculasmalu- the lesbian manifesto “The Woman-Identified Woman,” writ- cas.com) and is gathering an archive with documents relat- ten by Radicalesbians in 1970, which was published in the ed to sexual dissidences. first issue ofSomos , in 1973, translated by Latrónico under the name Revolución Homosexual del Tercer Mundo.

2 Somos was a journal published by the Frente de Liberación Homosexual in Argentina between 1971 and 1976. Amongst their collaborators were Néstor Latrónico, who had been part of the Third World Gay Revolution group in New York (1970 – 1971), as well as prominent Argentine poet, scholar, and activist Néstor Perlongher.

28 29 This interview was conducted with Alan Michelson over email in June 2020.

Curators Linear perspective, which is a Western invention, can also be seen as a technology of domination. Much like surveillance technology, vision itself can be said to be a certain kind of technology and, historically, has emerged alongside the military-industrial complex. How does your work destabilize the tenets of linear perspective and perhaps lend itself to an evo- cation of what Jolene Rickard calls “visual sovereignty”?1

Alan Linear perspective is a centralizing system of representa- Michelson tion that privileges the single viewpoint. Its political analog would be monarchy — its psychological one, narcissism. It is a technology developed during the Renaissance, also the era of European exploration and colonization which helped fi- nance it. Like Cartesian projection, perspective is a cultural mapping of space that renders it uniform and quantifiable, facilitating its exploitation or expropriation. From the nautical chart to the land survey, such projection was a major tool of Western colonialism, and in its military applica- tion — artillery, for example — assisted in the projection of deadly force against non-European peoples. I am drawn to the extended horizontal format of the panorama, one shared by the wampum belt, the Haudeno- saunee/Eastern Woodland cultural feature employed in diplomacy. Panoramic art complicates and expands perspective, as does the art of diplomacy. In some of my works, I inject Western panoramic space and media, including video, into Haudenosaunee templates of space and relation, like the Two Row Wampum, which graphically symbolizes an eth- ical model for sharing space. A wampum belt is a woven ma- trix of purple and white shell beads arranged in a culturally

1 See Jolene Rickard. “Visualizing Sovereignty in the Time of Biometric Sen- sors.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 110, no. 2 (2011): 465 – 482.

30 31 legible design — an Indigenous analog to digital video’s ma- lands, which became the bulk of New York state, in a fifth trix of pixels. I suppose you could say that my work de- floor passageway. stabilizes the tenets of linear perspective by eschewing it — My first experiment in using light as a medium was in At and the destabilizing effects of colonization it has helped Sea [1990], a site-specific installation at Snug Harbor Cul- foster — in favor of a visuality anchored in Haudenosaunee tural Center, in which I installed a pair of diapositive pho- philosophy and materiality, which certainly comports with tomurals and dozens of colored acetates in the two rows of Jolene’s notion of visual sovereignty, who included my work windows of an architectural hyphen between two historic in her essay on the subject. buildings at the former home for sailors. One mural was an enlargement of an 1893 image of the sailors seated on the C Since 2001, your videos, and more recently your augment- benches in the hyphen and the other was a contemporary ed reality, or AR, work has used technology as a means to photograph of a group of homeless people on benches in surface the multiple, layered temporalities embedded in a Tompkins Square Park. It was a contemporary version of site and to critique the conditions which contributed to their stained glass, referencing the nautical paintings on glass erasure in the first place. In these works, light is often used in one of the buildings, and created a chapel-like effect. as both material and subject, again thinking about light as a Because the murals were transparencies, they took on the col- mechanism of domination and also a fundamental, perhaps or and texture of their external surroundings — the yellow universal, tool in art. Can you talk about your turn to video brick of an adjoining building, for example, and the changing in 2001 and to AR and your usage of light in these works? light of day. I used light similarly in Third Bank of the Riv- er [2009], a much later public art piece, a large, transparent, AM Mespat [2001] was my first video installation and consisted etched-glass mural, which is also both front and backlit and of panoramic video projected onto a large screen of white changes with the daylight. turkey feathers. More recently, in Hanödaga:yas (Town De- Light was used as a metaphor in American landscape stroyer) [2018], I projected video onto a white replica bust of painting, including that of the Hudson River School. In George Washington and, in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (The- Shattemuc [2009], a video panorama commissioned for the atre of the World) [2019], onto four white globes. Projecting 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s exploratory voyage video onto still solid objects creates tension between the that was shot at night from a boat, I trained a marine search- object’s materiality and video’s materiality, which is mov- light onto the riverbank on a section where Hudson’s crew ing colored light and sound, and also between the object’s had a bloody skirmish with the local Native people. It was iconography and the video’s content — dialectical tensions a powerful light whose square beam illuminated the passing I exploit. Each informs and distorts the other. Setting up landscape, seeming to paint it out of the darkness. I was ref- that tension is a creative strategy of mine, and I’ve used it erencing the Hudson Night Line boats which once plied the over a range of media, most recently in two AR works with river and illuminated monuments for tourists, but also the Steven Fragale in my Whitney show. Through its technol- sinister aspect of light as a tool of surveillance and control, ogy, nothing short of magic, AR allowed me to manifest in aspects heightened by the fact that our boat was a former the museum what Manifest Destiny destroyed or rational- NYPD patrol launch skippered by a retired state trooper. ized, a Lenape tobacco field in the lobby and Washington’s scorched-earth campaign against our Haudenosaunee home- C You mention the distinction between human and geological

32 33 time and how you’re interested in bridging those different the camera or the reliefs, carries a sense of both denunci- temporalities. How does your work intervene in these dis- ation and beauty. In a work like Shattemuc, for example, tinctions and what is the role of duration in your video work there is the reference to the violence of settler colonialism, and, as a concept, in your practice in general? its continuation through tourism, and also art history (e.g. the Hudson River School) — but the images and the music AM Geological time is the cosmic history of the Earth — mea- give the viewer an eerily pleasurable experience. How do sured in millions of years, dwarfing human time. In many you see the tensions between the critical and the more al- of my works, I am surfacing the unmarked and unexpected luring or sensorially pleasing aspects of your artworks? history of a particular site, history that’s possibly instructive. One such work is Earth’s Eye [1990], which addresses the AM Art can express both, which is one of its unique powers. death by pollution and burial by landfill of Collect Pond, Watching a Shakespeare drama, one simultaneously registers a large, deep, spring-fed pond in Lower Manhattan in the the beauty of the language, both verbal and non-verbal, the early 1800’s. A pond created by geologic forces eons ago, actors and the set, and the depth of tragedy unfolding. The which sustained many Indigenous forms of life for genera- beauty establishes grounds for the tragedy and conveys its tions, settlers ruined in barely two hundred years and built pain in visceral ways that engage and move audiences. a notorious prison and execution ground known as the “Tombs” on its infill. That sequence, from pond to Tomb, C Can you talk about how you are appropriating and trans- I find heartbreaking and noteworthy. On Manhattan Island, forming Western artforms, genres, and practices, and what and all over America, “progress” transformed the landscape these modes of appropriation effect in your work? For beyond recognition, levelling hills, converting streams into example, you reference the Hudson River School in your sewers, damming and polluting rivers, and wiping out wet- work Twilight, Indian Point [2003] and moving panoramas lands. We are all paying for that progress now with climate in Shattemuc and Mespat. change and other environmental disasters. The temporal is always present in the spatial, even if AM I love many Western art forms, genres, and practices, but only latently so. Through its ability to photographically cap- not the ideology they often express, even by default. Hud- ture time, space, and sound, and its compelling immedi- son River School painters bought into Manifest Destiny. acy, video is an effective medium with which to ponder Their luminous, ethnically cleansed landscapes, like those of and translate history. Duration is built in, and can express photographers who succeeded them, romanticize the Ameri- real time, or through editing, whole periods or cycles. In canization of the continent, dismissing as collateral damage Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World), shown in the expropriation and genocidal removal of Native people Venice last year, I compressed five hundred years of colo- from their homelands. Moving panoramas — landscape or nial history into less than twelve minutes of video. sea-scape paintings on miles of canvas unspooled for paying audiences — were a proto-cinematic, virtual form of tour- C Although your works sound bold condemnations of set- ism to exotic locales colonized by Europeans or Americans. tler colonialism and critiques of art history and institutions, In-visible in both of these genres is the violent, tragic, crimi- they seem to also have a special attention to sensorial plea- nal history underpinning them, something that my appropri- sure. The gesture of evoking or registering things with, say, ation of them reveals.

34 35 C In the sixties, land artists became known for their ambitious interventions into natural settings. Your public artwork Curators Mantle [2018] references Smithson’s Spiral Jetty [1970], but unlike Smithson your work takes into consideration the history of the land and the symbolic importance of the form of the spiral, which in Mantle is based on the spiral shell embroideries on the historic Powhatan’s Mantle [c. 1608]. Works such as Earth’s Eye, Cult of Memory, and Permanent Title address issues of land ownership, settler colonialism, and environmental degradation via industrialization and urbanization specifically in the setting of Lower Manhat- tan. Can you talk about how you approach land and how that’s distinct from the practices of canonical American land artists?

AM Mantle references the spiral as an ancient Indigenous form and the form of the shell embroidery on Powhatan’s Man- tle, thought to represent the nations of his confederacy. As a large contemporary earthwork embedded, via cut and fill, in the slope at the foot of Richmond’s Capitol Square, Mantle references Native mounds. Despite the prominence of Spiral & Jetty in contemporary art, it is a secondary reference at best, since Smithson’s work and the work of the other land artists owes an obvious but unacknowledged debt to the Indige- nous mound builders. Their practices are ahistorical and despite a dystopian un- dercurrent, largely formal. I approach land from the standpoint of an Indigenous artist, honoring its beauty, lamenting its history, decrying its theft and abuse, and the ongoing abuse of Indigenous people by settler colonialism. Standing up for the land is another form of beauty.

Alan Michelson’s biography can be found in the first booklet of this catalog. Rashad

36 Newsome37 The interview below is compiled and edited from two con- is live in this time of livestream. The experimentation with versations with Rashaad Newsome in 2020, one on March these various platforms results in a transmedia experience. 6, in person, and another on May 19, over Zoom. But then, there’s also the whole idea of avatars — after coming off of creating Being and starting that project with Curators Two weeks after our studio visit in March the COVID-19 this idea of making this physical robot and then thinking, pandemic hit New York and events previously scheduled to why does it need to be physical?2 There’s that maker-side take place moved to virtual platforms. Within virtual space, where you want to make something physical, but if you’re what has been exciting to you and what models or platforms not bound by physicality, isn’t that more interesting? You do you think people could be utilizing? can be anything at any time. For instance, on your phone, you can be a unicorn or a chicken (laughs). It’s really as far Rashaad I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of livestream. I’m as your mind can go. I’m thinking a lot about that and what Newsome finding myself in many conversations about livestream. Peo- is truly possible in that space. ple are trying to reproduce reality-based experiences. Why?! What is “live” in this time? Reality isn’t offering much in C So many people are just trying to recreate reality right now, the way of hope, at the moment, so I want to explore the and recreate what existed prior to this moment. imaginative possibilities of augmented reality. It is the world of the imagination and I’m trying to go as far down that rab- RN This moment is about reimagining everything that wasn’t bit hole as possible. working before, and I think there’s something to the gatekeep- This project [at the Shed] is an exercise in playing with ers no longer having the power they used to have. People that.1 My friend [April] DJ-ed live on Instagram Live and are finally looking at the stain of white supremacy on the filmed it. One of my dancers, Legendary Monster Mon_Teese, world and having conversations in a way that I have never used the PHANTASM lens that I created in Snapchat last experienced before, this is really exciting. What does the year to film himself dancing, the vocalist Precious went on contemporary art landscape look like when everyone is be- Facebook Live to do their vocals and filmed it. All of these ing held accountable for their bad behavior? livestreams were then given to me and I collaged them into one video. They were all done live, separately and at differ- C It becomes a question for us around how online-space is ent times, and then the amalgamated video will be screened its own space and has its own kind of reality — and differ- live on the Shed’s Instagram. That live video seamlessly ent functions that also require their own kind of treatment. flows right into a live DJ-set by April. Was it live when we There’s no easy translation. each did our thing? Is it live in the moment the video is being premiered? It’s really playing with this idea of what RN I’ve been having conversations with friends who are talking about how they want to go out and have a good time. I’m

1 Go Off! Joy in Defiance. Creative direction by April Hunt (DJ) and Rashaad Newsome (artist), with Legendary Monster Mon_Teese (performer) and Pre- cious (commentator). The Shed, New York, NY, June 14, 2020. https://theshed. 2 Being is a cloud-based artificial intelligence humanoid created by Newsome org/program/157-april-hunt-and-rashaad-newsome-with-legendary-monster- and programmed with the works of theorists such as bell hooks, Paulo Freire, mon-teese-and-precious. and Michel Foucault.

38 39 thinking about how to make the virtual premiere of Shade to begin work on your forthcoming documentary. When did Compositions (Pittsburgh) a kind of outing. you start to observe these changes, and what has that evolu- Premiering the project this way seemed to me like a cool tion looked like? way to reimagine the viewer’s live-art experience. When talking to potential partners we discussed that maybe we RN I started to see it in 2014. I lived in Paris for a year in 2005, could have a virtual cocktail reception in advance of the off and on, and when I was there, there was no ballroom screening where people could get dressed up, and have a scene. Then when I went back in 2014, which is when I drink together from the comfort of their own home. There started to make this film, there was this huge scene and it could even be a red-carpet type situation where people can was like it had always been there. It was just as big as New share what they’re wearing. Rather than even thinking about York. I went to, like, three different balls when I was there a reality-based version of that, what if you just use avatars and there were tons of people, I was so amazed at how fast and you can come to an event literally dressed as an avatar of that happened. Ballroom [in New York] is a Black and Lat- your own design, whatever you want. It was an imaginative inx queer experience — but there, it was all different types way of having an evening out that could never be matched of folks and it wasn’t just queer, it was all types of sexual by reality. identities. There were also many Paris chapters of US houses. The first new house that I met was the House of Ladurée, C That’s also a nice departure from capitalism and thinking which you see in the sample clip when they asked me to about brands, only to still be able to get dressed up, have a be the godfather. night out, and not think about it in terms of what brand From a performance standpoint, I see them as being a you’re wearing but rather the other possibilities of what you little more creative because the culture is so new that peo- could be, or other beings you could be. ple are really excited and they just want to do it. A lot of that, too, has to do with a socialist system where the gov- RN Right now I’m working on this year’s King of Arms Art Ball, ernment takes care of everyone in that country to a certain which is going to be virtual, taking place July 10. When I extent, in a way that in America that’s not the case. So the was doing this event before, a big part of it was trying to use realities of day-to-day lives expenses are a little bit heavier the architecture of ballroom to get people to think critically on people here, so people do really need to get something about the world they live in and lean into their imagina- out of what they’re doing which I think can often affect tion — rather than acquisition as a way to comment on [the one’s creativity. world]. I’m excited about this one because in some ways One thing we’re exploring in [the documentary] is also shelter-in-place forces people to be creative in ways they the rise of cisgender women in the scene. There is a huge may not have known they could be. They will also have ac- group of cisgender women, particularly white women, who cess to resources via their phone like face apps, augmented have entered the scene, and I’m very interested in how these reality lenses, and such. It’s going to be more about who folks are thinking about what they do. There are some wom- can be the most inventive, not who can acquire something. en who are amazing. They come in and people don’t think that they’re going to be able to do it. It’s such a weird thing C In our last visit, we talked about the changes you’ve wit- to see — the fact that they’re there and vogueing becomes a nessed in the global vogue community, which prompted you spectacle — and people go crazy for it. You’ll see a [white

40 41 cisgender] woman battling, let’s say, a Black trans woman People can interact with it and do different things, but it’s who is equally as amazing, if not way more amazing, but problematic when it’s being done in an inequitable society. somehow it will be eclipsed by the spectacle of a white woman voguing in that space. I’m wondering in what ways that C Your role in this film reminds us ofShade Compositions, is reinforcing certain racial stereotypes, and in what ways where you’ve spoken about your role as that of a conductor the Black community has internalized white supremacy and of an ensemble. is enacting that on themselves, or how queer community has internalized homophobia and is enacting that on themselves. RN When I think critically about the orchestra and connections That’s something I really want to explore in the film. to a Eurocentric practice, I also see [the ensemble] as a choir, When I started making the film, I wanted to show a glob- which is a lot more diasporic, for example, when you think al picture, but because the culture is growing so fast we’re about the Black church. I see myself as a conductor of a gos- rethinking the decision to stick to certain countries and ter- pel choir, and I play with that, too, in terms of my wardrobe. ritories. Now, we’re also thinking about hitting other places [The documentary] made me realize how the role that I because there are interesting stories. For example, in Russia play in all of my work mirrors the work of a director. As a there’s a whole scene. It’s a challenging film to make because director, you’re working with large groups of people and you it’s about my work, so it’s a process film, but my medium have to know how to balance being in control so that some- is people. These people have experiences and stories. Then thing can actually be produced, but also leave room for peo- there’s this culture that the people are participating in, so ple to have a voice and to enhance what is trying to be pro- there’s multiple stories being told. We’re trying to figure out duced while also pushing people beyond their limits so that how to tell all those stories in a feature-length format. when it’s done, they can actually be proud of it. Another reason why I feel a certain sense of urgency around making [the documentary] is because of the legacy C Do you think there’s a difference in how the mechanisms of Black cultural production being co-opted and then sold at work in Shade Compositions play out in live performance back to Black people. We saw that with rock ‘n’ roll, with as opposed to watching a video of it? jazz, with hip-hop — and vogue culture at this very moment is on that precipice because it’s being taken on by so many RN Absolutely. Because you’re in a gallery or your own home, different people globally. At a certain point, the people who you’re safe. It’s a safe way to consume without being chal- created it will be erased from it. There’s already so much lenged at all. In the live performance, the audience must deal language out there. When the work has been cited, there’s with the gaze of the performers as they attempt to consume some reason that people need to cite Madonna or Paris is them. I think my physical resistance to being consumed in Burning… like it needs to center that white interpretation live performance has a different effect as well. It came from of this culture to access it. Vogue is at the precipice of that thinking about [whether it’s possible to] create count-er-he- moment where it’s going to be co-opted and those people gemonic work in historically hegemonic spaces. One could are going to be erased. This film has to be made to rebut that argue that’s impossible. Having my back to the audience and get [the history] from the mouths of the practitioners. makes it harder for me to be consumed. I’m focused on I don’t think that culture has fixed boundaries. Culture is the performers and they are focused on me, to some ex- supposed to grow and expand, and that’s what is so fantastic. tent. The looking relationships are always in opposition

42 43 to the audience as a way to complicate the consumption of liberate, and that’s when I start to go off with the effects our Black bodies. because now I know they have completely let go and can handle anything I throw at them. It’s the most exciting part. C What is your thinking around the usage of repetition, which I’m close, so I see it in detail, but I’ve also seen how the is a central device in Shade Compositions? audience sees it. This moment is also something that I think translates into the video version as well. RN That’s my way to get to abstraction. When you see that front row [in Shade Compositions], for instance, making a gesture C We wanted to ask you about the relationship between the (does smack gesture), you’re like, “I know that,” but after a archive and abstraction, specifically in the context of vogue. while, you lose sight that they’re smacking and it becomes Are you thinking about your work as an archive that you’re rhythmic. It becomes hypnotizing, you lose sight of the act trying to build? What is the level of abstraction that you of what they’re doing, and you get lost in the sonic experi- bring into it? ence. That’s where the repetition comes in. They are also improvising, which is deeply connected to RN It’s already in the realm of abstraction. What I’ve been think- the Black American experience. It’s what we have done and ing critically about lately is erasure. I’m thinking a lot, late- continue to do in the face of our complicated history. It’s ly, about erasure regarding abstraction. Being looks the way how we make something out of nothing. In this case, noth- they look not because they are Black, or because I’m trying ing is a gesture that produces a sound. They create an ar- to make a Black robot, but because when I was thinking about ray of narratives that bring forth that gesture. Those gestures Being, I was thinking that they are beyond a body, beyond a then become music and that music then becomes both the physicality, they don’t need to look like anything, and that’s method for our survival and an object of study for us as we what’s incredible. So, I’m like, well, how do you engender try to understand our survival. I believe what’s happening an image that is entirely non-binary? in the streets across the country is a form of improvisation. Where does the aesthetics of abstraction come from as People are fed up with the corrupt, unfair, untrustwor- we know it in the West? African art, Cubism, Surrealism. thy, and violent government systems in America. They don’t When you start to think about abstraction, it is a diasporic know what to do at this point, so they are improvising. practice. I’m thinking about abstraction as something that is One thing that I always noticed that happens for the not only in art practice but also a way of life. The existence group is that there’s this moment when they get to this place of the African-American is rooted in abstraction, too. The where they transcend entirely, after making this gesture for African-American experience is a collage. a very long time, and at a certain point they start to move All of the work I’m doing could be considered an archive like a machine. Like someone will be like (smacking ges- of the dance form [vogue], but I’m coming back now to this ture), and then the person in the middle will be like (smack- idea of the archive through Being. During my residency at ing gesture), and then someone else will be like (smacking the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelli- gesture x 3), and their bodies are moving in the way that gence we are thinking about what the archive looks like in the rhythm is going and you see this kind of movement the diaspora, a griot. I see Being 2.0 as a digital griot. This going through the sections. That’s the moment when I’m fall, I am creating a small motion capture studio to capture like, okay, they’re in it, and the improvisation becomes de- the movements of vogue practitioners proficient in styles

44 45 ranging from Old Way-vogue Femme and all their subsets. principles, the ribbed vaults, etc. Black bodies were erased We will apply this data to the Being avatar rig and animate from this era of art. it. Also, I am writing a script for Being to perform a lecture/ Recently I did a talk at the Getty, in conversation with the dance workshop to function as a reimagining of a Black queer show they did about Balthazar who was one of the original archive. I hope to make the archive publicly accessible to kings that were present for the Christ child’s birth. He was bring forth new possibilities for research and an enhanced Black, but historically, in painting, he’s been painted white. academic experience. They had gathered all of the paintings of him as he really was. Again, you think about how the Black body is erased C It feels like Icon, which was in your Studio Museum show, from history or put on the margins, so I was thinking, let me serves as a transition point between the videos you were pull that body in and make it present. It’s a reclaiming of making documenting performances, and your videos working that body. with technology.3 How were you thinking about computer [In Icon], you see the body in that architecture engages technology, video programming, or animation in Icon? in a dance of freedom. As the environment tries to impose limitations on the body, it continually expands the space. RN I wanted to move away from analog collage. I had a lot of You’re sort of going into these new worlds that resemble training in post-production, so I wanted to do collage but in video game aesthetics. That choice came from thinking a video space — thinking again about that idea of abstraction, about the whole idea of levels — (laughs) There’s levels to and how, in early 20th century, abstract artists flattened the this shit — and how you’re continually trying to decolonize surface to depict different sides and angles that suggested and how that’s a never-ending task. You’re always just go- three-dimensionality. Within the digital space, I wanted to ing to another level, but you never really win the game. It’s bring back the depth and this idea of the work being a win- about just staying in the game. dow onto a scene. I was coming off of all that work that was using heraldry as a way to talk about the culture of domination. I was thinking of the beginnings of heraldry, which Rashaad Newsome’s biography can be found in the first is part of ornament, which is a part of the Baroque. When booklet of this catalog. considering the beginnings of the Baroque, I came to the Basilica. Ornament and heraldry are often used as a framing device on this type of architecture. I was also considering architecture’s place within the culture of domination, and how it’s often used between cities and nations as a source of power. Architecture became the starting point for the work. I inserted the Black body because there’s this connection between the body and baroque architecture, the Vitruvian

3 Rashaad Newsome: THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO SEE, organized by Amanda Hunt (Assistant Curator), The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY, March 24 – June 26, 2016. https://studiomuseum.org/exhibition/rashaad-newsome-what-i-want-see.

46 47 El Estallido / The Outbreak by Amelia Bande

On October 14, 2019 protests erupted in Santiago, Chile. For five days, public high-school students protested the rise of the subway cost by organizing massive fare evasions. By October 19, the uprising had gone beyond the subway price and the students. The entire city was in the street protesting. No specific political group took credit. It was a combination of exhaustion, fury and nothing else to lose. The facade of nor- malcy, of 30 years of democracy since the end of Pinochet’s regime in 1990, was broken. Latin America’s “strongest” econ- omy showed the many leaks and failures of its capitalist experiment. My friends were in the street. My mom sent me and my siblings several reports via WhatsApp audio messages — we all live abroad. This one is from October 20:

Mis amores, here I am back home, what do you want me to say, yesterday was an unbelievable day. Everything started as just another protest and it ended with Santiago in flames. What else can I tell you? Piñera [the president] went to eat pizza with his grandson in Vitacura [a rich neighborhood], while Santiago burned away to then return to La Moneda [the government palace] and ordain a State of Emergency, sending the military to the streets. This is how things are. Very strange, very intense and today is a pseudo calm day, we are already with the emergency over us. We will see what happens. Everything was very surprising and people’s anger was evident. I hope you are very well, I send you thousands of kisses, I love you very much, and I will see you all soon. That’s it. Bye mis amores.

It didn’t calm down. The whole country erupted. Buildings, car dealerships, subway and bus stations were burned down; toll plazas and highways were blocked; supermarkets were looted around the entire country. For the first time since 1987, a curfew was installed. Back then we were still under Pinochet. I was 10 years old and having the military in the

48 49 street was a daily occurrence. An ocean of barricades was usually a combination point between two of the main lines the landscape over which my mother drove me home from that direct workers back home, far out, to the city’s periph- school. Somehow those fires were never scary. I knew the ery; it’s been closed for months. On the top floor of a build- barricade was on the right side of history. ing by the Plaza there is an art gallery, Galería Cima. During those first days of protests back in October, they started By November, Chile was still up in flames. We saw videos filming the Plaza from up high. It became a 24/7 live broad- that showed cops staging the fires and the looting. And so cast on YouTube. When I was still in Brooklyn, their channel many videos of military and police shooting and abusing was a fundamental way of staying informed. After teaching people in the streets, with reports of torture, rape, and peo- my last class of the day, I would use the classroom’s pro- ple being illegally arrested. jector to connect myself to the protest, watching the multi- tudes of people, the smoke, the singing. A friend was shot on the face by police with a rubber bullet. We used to work together in a theater more than ten years In December, after the semester ended, I flew to Santiago. ago. I wanted to know how she was doing. She sent me Before going down to the Plaza I would always check on this audio: Galería Cima’s channel to get a sense of the situation. I would text with friends: Cops are not letting people come Beautiful Amelia, I was in really bad shape, but I’m coming down / Looks like there’s way too much teargas / They’ve out of it. People send me so much love and that is a very regained the square! ok, see you there in 30! concrete thing that nurtures you and saves you. I started the procedures in the National Institute for Human Rights. I’m Galería Cima’s daily archive — they are still filming and documenting my injuries with the National Medical Associ- keeping all footage, even though the protests have been ation. I’m doing better every day, I’m going up like a plane. mostly interrupted by coronavirus quarantine policies — has But I was not doing well. They were facing me and then served as an audiovisual document of the many clashes be- they shot me, I saw it, it’s a big trauma. I’m gonna press tween cops and protesters. It’s possible to study in detail the charges. That’s what I’m doing. The situation is complex movements and strategies of cops in their effort to reduce here, Amelia, if you could see it. You would not believe it. the crowds. Like when they approached from all sides forc- The imagination is not enough to see what I am seeing. ing people to jump to the Mapocho River. Or when they used But oh well. Okay. Let’s fight with everything. Thank you that extra strong tear gas that made everybody throw up, the my friend for thinking about me, you don’t know how much one that left clouds of green and yellow smoke. Or the time it helps. they water cannoned an ambulance, delaying the rescue of injured protester Abel Acuña, who ended up dying. From • above, the camera provides a miniature record, a choreogra- phy of resistance. We see protesters raising their organiza- The protests in Santiago take place in Plaza Dignidad [ex tion and defense mechanisms to maintain control of the Plaza Italia], a geographical circle with historical markers of Plaza regardless of police violence. Running through the class divide. Important avenues run from the Plaza south, alleys, throwing rocks that hit police trucks, people open up west and east. The subway station Baquedano rests below, the doors to their houses. They are not scared of strangers.

50 51 The mob was suddenly a friend of the city, because it was I find it difficult to track down traces of how I move over the city who had come out to the streets to tear it all apart. each surface. Who in the house went where and what were they in touch with? Are we going to keep a tab of every- • body’s intimacy footprint? I touch my face too much.

On March 4th I landed in Los Angeles, California. A short • visit becomes a long term life change with the arrival of COVID-19. I know very well I fit in the high-risk category The mask appears. While I was in Chile, we wore masks as someone with advanced lung disease. The priority is to and protective eye wear because of teargas and rubber bul- keep myself as far as possible from exposure to the virus. lets. I had all these masks with me from the protests there. Within this framework, I turn toward an extended shelter-in- Back in November, Chilean congress passed an anti-hoodie place with no end date. law, giving longer jail sentences to anybody covering their faces while disrupting social order. Now, it is required to My friend goes to my room in Brooklyn and packs all my cover our faces to go outside. A few weeks ago, a young things to take to storage. She video calls me and we go mother in New York was arrested for not covering her through my paperwork. I need to decide what I want sent to face correctly. me, but I don’t know what things will matter. As I finish writing, there are buildings up in flames in Min- I speak to my doctor. She recommends I postpone the start of neapolis, following the massive outrage for the racist killing an immunosuppressant treatment we had planned. I create a of George Floyd at the hands of four cops. Quarantines are fictional balance where I tell myself I’m safe by not going to being lifted nationwide and a new wave of infections is pro- the hospital to get my routine tests. My health insurance does jected at some point. In the streets of Los Angeles, New York, not cover me out of state. In reality I know I’m being told to Denver, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Wash- neglect the treatment of this chronic illness. My window of ington DC, people gather with signs and anger. Exhaustion is tolerance is a mirror to other people’s situations. I am one palpable. Social media is exploding in avalanches of cam- person facing certain consequences. I know these are ampli- paigns and inspirational quotes on systemic racism. Cops in fied for others with less resources than me, or sicker than riot gear spray chemicals, military grade tear gas, shoot rub- me. Deaths begin. They precipitate and mount vigorously, ber bullets. Protesters protect themselves with make-shift COVID-19 related or not. shields. Lots of them wear masks. PPE is a new normal in times of a viral pandemic. My hope is that the mask will make I’m staying in a big house where my lover lives. We joke it impossible to recognize their faces. I was worried yester- about being stuck with each other. Coronavirus propels our day seeing photos of young unmasked demonstrators cele- story forward without much of a choice. One day I fell to the brating the Minneapolis 3rd Precinct coming down in flames. floor from so much laughing, a good sign. If one thing, I will That’s always the silent aftermath of a protest, the arrest and not reject love, not now. I surrender to this sweetness, allow later conviction of the protester for destroying property, pub- myself to be cared for. lic and private. Even if the fire was started by an undercover cop. Governments are juggling through different absurdities

52 53 of control. In the dissolution of categories, it’s always the I’ve been curiously rubbing my heart against the limits and underdog who is killed. texture of nostalgia, things I’ve lost in the past few months. I don’t know if this is productive. When the violence we The virus gives permission to restrict how much closeness encounter is systemic and global, we become fugitives, run- is allowed and under which circumstances. Still, cops will ning away from the threat that keeps biting our feet in all use all bodily force to subdue a citizen if they decide their places. What I know is that self-care alone won’t keep my movement is disruptive. I see a cop throw a black man to neighbor alive. I want to say hi to you and ask, what do you the ground for not following social distancing practices. The need, how can I help? cop wears no gloves, no mask, a definite arrest, an invasion of skin, risk of contagion, all to teach a lesson. It is painful There’s an empty spot, it gets activated when we text each to watch him enforce policies of public protection during a other. A reaction of closeness, despite actual distance. We health emergency by breaking all the rules himself. create lines between us, to remain together, not only for sto- rytelling or anecdotes, more like electric signals of connec- Safety and risk are a spectrum in which we exist and make tion, a photo you took of some dish you made, a song I sing decisions. I left the house one day to see a friend and I hugged on a Zoom call, a package that arrives from the pharmacy her. I don’t owe anyone an apology for this behavior. May- with my medication, all of that money donated to the bail be we spoke about what kind of practices we’ve both been funds, the dykes everywhere and their mutual aid, our acts following in order to minimize our exposures, maybe we of solidarity not being enough, to drive your friend to the didn’t. It seemed safe to hug, I wanted to do it. testing site, the flowers you picked up for me on your walk, and the flames, the burning, all those buildings coming Health and sickness are a continuum too. There are no clear- down, the fear, the rage, our faces, our love for each other. cut borders between the healthy and the sick. We are all both things, at all times, in different stages of thriving or decay. The more visible my disability becomes, the less I can escape a public assessment of my health.

When the estallido happened in Chile, those fighting the police directly were called Primera Linea, a First Line of bodies against reprisal. These revolts were happening simultaneously in many places worldwide. When the pandemic came, we had to conceive of our bodies differently, still in a type of warzone. Medical workers tending to the coronavirus are called First Responders. Both the protest and the hospital are scenarios of body exposure. In such physical vulnera- bility, interdependence is what propels us into awareness and survival.

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