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Narrating Identity, Dislocating Bodies
7/11/2008 | An exhibition exploring notions of belonging, memory, loss and diaspora within the context of the U.S. asylum policy and transgendered women. Narrating Identity, Dislocating Bodies was curated by Monica Enriquez-Enriquez, for the annual QueLaCo (Queer Latino Artist Collective) festival. |
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Narrating Identity, (Dis)locating Bodies explores questions of belonging, memory, loss, and diaspora in the context of asylum policy in the U.S. Through video, installation, and photography, the artists invite us to resist the official narratives of citizenship and immigration imposed by the U.S. state, while meditating on the migration and dislocation of marginalized identities.
These artworks speak of trauma and transformation, survival and resistance, isolation and community. In contrast to the realities of border policing and detention, they explore the meaning of healing and of democratic citizenship for people of color in the U.S. The artists ask the audience to interrogate the process of gaining queer asylum in the U.S. How do we struggle for a visibility beyond and outside the mainstream? As they uncover the dangers of a complacent and nationalist model of citizenship, the artists reveal the wisdom of the margins. In narrating marginalized identities as bodies in movement, they propose a radical, holistic, and loving alternative to nationalist paradigms.
The margins in these works are in tension with the center yet become homes to bodies in flight and bodies in transit: brown bodies, migrant bodies, queer bodies. Made public, these artworks document emotions such as loss, nostalgia, and melancholia yet are not afraid to take us home.
mónica enríquez-enríquez, artist and curator.
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