Zoo island tomas rivera notes series#

Photo courtesy the Walker Art Center Archives

Guillermo GГіmez-PeГ±a and Coco Fusco in Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, September 12, 1992. Dark sunglasses, cowboy boots, and Converse sneakers completed their costumes. They wore grass skirts, plastic beads, and leather wristbands, as well as a wrestlerвЂ™s mask and head dresses. As caged вЂњGuatinauis,вЂќ the two performed various rituals of вЂњauthenticвЂќ daily life such as writing on a laptop computer, watching TV, sewing voodoo dolls, and lifting weights. They were on display in a gilded cage in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden where people could pay: to take pictures of themselves in front of the cage to see the вЂњnativesвЂќ perform a ritual dance (to rap music) or to hear stories in Guatinaui language, which was actually gibberish. In the performance, GГіmez-PeГ±a and Fusco presented themselves as indigenous Guatinauis, natives to the fictitious island of Guatinaui, somehow untouched by colonization. Their project included not only the radio program but also a visual arts installation, a simulated Mayan stellar observatory, and a durational performance-one of the projectвЂ™s most well-known elements-entitled Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West.

These conversations helped to solidify the political and aesthetic tone of the pairвЂ™s interdisciplinary вЂњcounter-quincentenary celebrationвЂќ: a clear-if often humorous- critique and challenge to Western, colonial narratives of discovery and progress. In the radio show, GГіmez-PeГ±a engaged in dialogues on collaborative writing, the role of artists in discussing the aftermath of colonization, and the glorification of Columbus.

The project included diverse forms of art-making, including an experimental radio program created in collaboration with Minnesota artists including Native American writer Jim Northrup and Korean American performance artist Damas. The second half of the exhibitionвЂ™s title was inspired by a poem that refers to the Spanish conquistadors as вЂњwhite bears,вЂќ a term used by the PГЎez people of Colombia-a powerful reminder of how history is written from the perspective of the colonizers, erasing languages and worldviews from Native peoples of the Americas. Photo courtesy the Walker Art Center ArchivesДЇusco and GГіmez-PeГ±a explored the ways the вЂњdiscovery of AmericaвЂќ was represented over some 500 years: this was the focus of the Walker Art Center exhibition Guillermo GГіmez-PeГ±a and Coco Fusco: The Year of the White Bear. Guillermo GГіmez-PeГ±a and Coco Fusco in a staged portrait for The Year of the White Bear, 1992. Taking up this infamous date, the collaborative performance project the two created has become iconic-an example of the way interdisciplinarity can importantly lie at the base of decolonial and political art projects that question histories of oppression.

Zoo island tomas rivera notes series#

Two years later, in 1992, the quincentennial commemoration of Christopher ColumbusвЂ™s expedition sparked a series of worldwide events that revisited ColumbusвЂ™s вЂњdiscoveryвЂќ and its political ramifications. In 1990, the two, together with Mexican-American artist RenГ© YГЎГ±ez, began their collaboration, creating Norte/Sur, a multidisciplinary art installation that exposed the connections and disconnections between the United States and Latin America. For example, Fusco had explored the impact of slavery and racism in Cuba, while GГіmez-PeГ±a founded the Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo to create collaborative art projects with migrant communities along the US-Mexico border. Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist and writer Coco Fusco and Chicano performance artist, writer, and educator Guillermo GГіmez-PeГ±a joined forces and talents in the early 1990s to discuss the unbalanced relations between the regions that make up the Americas and the complexities of what it means for those individuals who reside between cultures and languages.Д«efore they began their collaboration, both artists were already invested in exploring histories of colonialism, racism, and the impact of geopolitical and affective borders in their art. But when the nodal point of collaborative projects dwells in mixed and border-crossing identity politics, and in the pervasiveness of colonial mindsets in current dehumanizing practices, artistic partnerships become acts of resistance. вЂњCHOQUE CULTURAL CULTURE SHOCK RUPTURA RUPTURE VIOLACION RAPE GENOCIDIO GENOCIDE.вЂќД¬ollaboration in the arts and performance usually emerges from the desire to harmonize voices and visions, signaling both the nuances that differentiate creative approaches and the similarities that bring them together.