I find myself once again in Guayaquil, Ecuador. A quick aside: I never lived in Guayaquil when I was living in Ecuador. I lived in Quito. My family is from Guayaquil, but I always feel like Quito is My City. So it has always felt strange that I have so many connections here.
Last week I managed to get over my occasional art related social anxiety and contact curator/writer Rodolfo Kronfle Chambers, whose blog I have written about before. When he expressed interest in seeing my work I admit I was nervous. His was an opinion I actually cared about. I truly admire the curatorial work he is doing in Ecuador. Thankfully the “studio visit” went well and I think we saw eye to eye about a lot of things—primarily art in Ecuador and perceptions about Ecuador abroad. He recommended that I read Culturas Hibridas by Nestor Garcia Caclini. I am still trying to track it down while I am still here but I think I should be able to find it in the US. At the very least I can probably get it via inter-library loan.
Incidentally, I quite like my morning routine of the past week or so. I wake up at around 8. It’s already around 80 degrees so I don’t feel so reluctant to get out from under the covers since I don’t really have any. I putter around doing “errands”. Shower. Get a breakfast of cheesy yucca breads and naranjilla yogurt. The day has begun.
Filed under: ecuador
My brother sent me an indignant email regarding this article: LINK
Overall I do think Mexico and Mexican culture does tend to be the face of Latin America in the US and it is something I’ve found sort of both amusing and mildly off-putting. Back in my undergraduate days, I made a good faith effort to join the campus Latino group. But I soon realized that Mexican culture dominated all of the meetings and events. I have nothing against that, but it’s not something I identify with. I knew I was going to quit when I found myself sitting in a smoky sage filled room for some Dia de Los Muertos ceremony and thinking “My Abuelos are freaking borderline atheists. This is ridiculous and not really my culture based in an urban Latin American city.”
So I quit going to meetings despite the excellent take-out and started writing a bitter column under the name “Token Latina” for a college paper.
I find inter-latino struggles kind of pointless really. I mean really can’t we all admit that we love pupusas and pan de yucca and call it a day? Not too long ago I had a totally ridiculous/antagonistic run-in with a Peruvian at a local art opening.* I was surprised it happened at all really. Ironically his friend, also a Peruvian, ended up asking me out.
Anyways I leave you with my brother’s response to all you squabbling Mexicans and Other Central American Countries:
In other words you all have it all wrong anyways…
“Un straw es SORBETE not pajia o popote
Un belt es CORREA not cincho o cinto
Popcorn isn’t palomitas it’s CANGUIL
Corn isn’t maiz it’s CHOCLO”
I’ll throw in my own: Pork is not cerdo, or puerco its CHANCHO!! (and it’s delicious!)
*To those not in the know: Peruvians and Ecuadorians are not supposed to get along due to border disputes that have gone on forever.
I really enjoy latinart.com. It is a great resource that highlights a lot of the really great and amazing contemporary art coming out of Latin America right now. (latino art is so hot right now if you must know). Their recent newsletter arrived in my inbox and lo and behold they were featuring a very interesting Ecuadorean artist called X Andrade. He is primarily a performance artist with a background in anthropology. I was super impressed with his work, and what he had to say in his interview. I highly recommend taking a look at what he is doing. I couldn’t help but agree with his assessment of the gentrification of the “Malecón 2000″.
Also worth noting is the blog Rio Revuelto . Sorry kids–Spanish only! The blog discusses the state of contemporary art in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Extremely informative. I finally feel like I have a better picture of the Ecuadorean contemporary art scene. Its hard to find under all the touristy stuff (which I find interesting for other more theoretical and anthropological reasons).
I have a new installation up at the 301 Gallery at the Montserrat School of Art in Beverly, MA.
301 Cabot St.
Beverly, MA
Also accessible by commuter rail!
It is in the window, so check it out whenever you can. No need to worry about gallery hours or the like. Opening party to be determined…
Sadly this is the best picture I could take. The sun was setting in such a way that mucked up every shot. I will try to go back when it is darker to get a better shot. This is the shortest amount of time I have ever taken to do an installation. Usually I take a couple days to set everything up. This time I showed up a little before 10am, and I was done at around 2pm. Of course my superstitious brain is going overdrive and is convinced the whole thing is going to collapse on itself overnight. Since my work uses ad-hoc electronics I always live in fear that it will “break” or just stop working. It has been suggested to me that I should create a future artwork about this fear…
There were a few incidents that prevented it from coming together too smoothly. I pulled a couple muscles because a) I am really out of shape, and b) the space itself is only about a foot wide, so I constantly had to position myself in weird and uncomfortable angles. I also ran into some trouble with the staple gun I was using to put the piece together, and it was soon realized that my quarter inch staples were not big enough. So a last minute trip home depot was in order, which I hate doing in the middle of a project as it makes me feel really unprepared.
But! While installing the piece, a Guatemalan man came up to the window and I had a nice chat with him. It was nice to talk to someone in who actually understood what most of the text meant, and I felt hopeful about perhaps reaching out to the Spanish speaking community in Beverly.
Edit: I forgot to mention that this installtion is best viewed when it is darker out.
A few blogs have written on this already but I absolutely had to join in. Wired Magazine featured a project called the 100 mile suit and for reasons I will elaborate further, infuriates me. (see wired story) In brief the 100 mile suit is a project undertaken by educator Kelly Cobb and her class to create a suit only using materials (including the sheep from which wool was used) within a 100 mile radius. Unfortunately it yielded the ugliest hippy looking thing imaginable. See the link above for pics. It makes me suddenly want to own a hummer and not recycle.
What is even more crazy in my mind is that it took Cobb’s group and entire freaking year to make this. I don’t get it. Cobb couldn’t find someone who knew how to sew or knit or weave decently? I am also disturbed by the fit. The jacket barely fits the guy. I could overlook the aesthetics if the fit was decent and the outfit didn’t look like it was thrown together. My grandmother has a woman who lives in her neighborhood who is a superb weaver and seamstress and makes her own swanky jackets–so while dwindling in number, there are people who do have serious skills and craftsmanship. Why didn’t Cobb enlist skilled people?
It disturbes me that this amatuerish project is garnering so much attention. Especially considering that there are people all over the place doing this exact thing and doing it better. Case in point I present you my beautiful pleated skirt that was hand-made by the Otavalo Indians of Ecuador.
They do all of their work from raising sheep, to weaving to designing to sewing within a 100 mile radius. And they sure as hell don’t take an entire year to fabricate one garment. Where is their big presentation at the ICA? We should not be getting our ideas about sustainability from silly experiments like Cobb’s or the 100 mile diet. The people to learn from are generally from poorer countries that have actually had sucess in maintaining their own sustainability.
