AUTO-GALÁCTICA
"Closing my month long residency and exhibition AUTO GALÁCTICA EN EL TERCER ESPACIO at ÁREA LUGAR DE PROYECTOS in Caguas, Puerto Rico, I performed an immersive, multi-disciplinary piece that spoke about displacement, belonging and my experience as a foreign Other within Puerto Rico and the Northeast of the United States.
There were two murals (both painted black on black historical maps of New England and Puerto Rico) and a projection of my film Visión Doble, connected by a black triangle on the floor. Dressed in white I engaged the two murals by vigorously retouching them in black oil paint and using my shirtdress to wipe my hands, evoking the influence of both places by literally marking myself with the layers of paint. The smell of oil filled the space. After affecting both maps I blindfolded myself and walked and crawled along the triangle. When I reached the map of New England I drank maple syrup and felt my body react to the sugar, meditating on the rush and channeling the absorption to find the third space. Still blindfolded I kept walking/crawling around the edge of the triangle, encountering the maps with my whole body in an identity rumination fueled by the soundtrack of a thunderstorm. After three journeys around the triangle, I reached the projection and removed the shirtdress. As the moving image shifted my still body remained in the middle of two parallel rows of palm trees in motion. Cleansed by this tropical passage, I went beyond the third space and asserted the fourth dimension. For the final action, artist Ivanna Bergese joined me, expanding the ritual by tattooing a black triangle on my forearm. The bond between us—the ink and blood, the pain and pleasure—brought a tangible consciousness to close the performance."
EMERGENCY INDEX 2014