Regeneration: a connection to material and land
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Regeneration is a multi-media installation composed of video and “ground” sculpture reclaiming dual identity, rebirth, and movement which are informed by my experiences as a Mexican-American immigrant. I grow in scale regenerative mesoamerican symbolism of a seashell encompassing duality within its demarcating lines. I use powdered mesquite charcoal and pine to form two lines, one dotted and one continuous, into a cyclical movement. These lines remind me of my Mexican-American immigrant identity within colonial settler histories. On one side, I encounter violent histories of displacement where indigenous people are semi-visible, and on the other side, I hear from my elders stories of resistance to make our people and culture present. In this duality of being visible and invisible, I gesture a regeneration that holds two truths in one. Two elements, fire and rain clouds, are projected on the wall to hold duality together next to each other rather than apart. The pattern of two is repeated throughout the installation and at its center a ceramic piece is placed. |
The raku piece uses fire and smoke to achieve its color and is formed into two joined strands. This action of joining together two entities with natural elements encompases a repetition needed were generational trauma has been endured.
Mesquite charcoal has been part of my life and its physical properties have channeled my experiences as an immigrant and border woman. I go out in the landscape with paper and charcoal to practice meditative drawing: a way to sit in the landscape and allow thoughts to intersect with the landscape. The act of drawing and allowing for the conscious and subconscious to take over perception is empowering. In society, women, specially border woman of color, do not take up much discourse in public spaces. Their voices are policed and politicized to uphold systems of oppression. Meditative drawings allow for a voice to emerge on the landscape and to tell the truth about ancestral stories. During a full moon, I go out to experience its symbolic presence. The moon, revered by my Mexican-American community as rebirth, is the guiding point of my drawing. Darkness shows up in my drawing. Sitting on the border landscape of my hometown in South Texas, my thoughts fill my drawing with past experiences of trauma and obscure my immediate perception of light and dark. These experiences locate the light source and obscured it, located it again and de-emphasized it through erasure. These drawings serve as doors to enter spaces embedded in my subconscious and allow me to confront how a migrating body confronts the past.
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