This is an open call for black/brown/latinx/immigrants/people of color/latinaomericanos/sudamericanos/chicanos
BUT ALSO ANYONE who has felt the pressure of referencing their "exoticism" as a (fill the blank) artist (queer, womxn, trans, immigrant) in order to access funding or spaces
to participate in the forum: where do I get my tortillas?
an evening to play with the labels and stereotypes that have been put upon us in the process of OTHERING, while funding, creating, promoting and presenting our work.
Participants need only bring their questions… you know, THAT question you’ve been asking yourself for a while, maybe more brains can come to your aid. And we will also open the space to show (short) live performances (performance art, dance, movement, theater or music) work on the subject.
We hope to find solace in each other, bitch about our common pains, and ignite collaborations that can contribute to the understanding of our very complex identities.
Ideas, writings, and pictures of the event will go to a collective zine, and any other outlet we feel the need of.
Register here
"What do you say, for example, when a professor in grad school asks you to insert more of your "Latina flavor" into your work? Like, what the fuck does that mean? Isn't the fact that I am Latina already enough to make my work Latina??? Do I have to make a work about Tortillas, or with Nopales, or about immigration because I am Mexican and I AM an immigrant?? What if I want to make work about pure movement or about weather patterns, or an Edgar Allen Poe poem, or trees, or love, or time, or (insert literally anything). And maybe I do want to make a work about Tortillas, and maybe I want to make a work with cactuses and call it CACTI (because someone like Alexander Ekman can make such a work without going into an existential crisis), and maybe I cannot avoid speaking about immigration through my work BECAUSE it is part of my experience and the work I do comes from that experience and I cannot and will not stay silent about the issues that concern my community…so then, am I going to be stereotyped or tokenized? How do I navigate this shit. Like, how. the. fuck."
- Paty Solorzano, dance artist
"how do we share and speak about our work so that it might support healing within all of us, ethnically diverse or not. How do we inspire others to do ancestral work rather than them asking us to share such intimate discoveries for their entertainment or political correctness/relevance?”
- Julianne Cariño, performance artist
* Two years ago, when being from Mexico didn't seem enough to be supported as a latinx artist, a friend shared this video.
In it, we see an actress, who in an artful way, moves the conversation from her wealth to her mexicanness. We don't mean to say she's not being honest. She IS from Mexico and food is VERY important. But, as "exotic" "others" we have internalized ways to feel accepted, loved, by resorting to the ideas that the dominant culture has put upon us. It is a coping mechanism. Salma can be very wealthy and famous, but had she been a white actress, she wouldn't have had to use her accent, spice, or attitude to please white audiences in a variety of roles she had to take in order to make it in hollywood.
In it, we see an actress, who in an artful way, moves the conversation from her wealth to her mexicanness. We don't mean to say she's not being honest. She IS from Mexico and food is VERY important. But, as "exotic" "others" we have internalized ways to feel accepted, loved, by resorting to the ideas that the dominant culture has put upon us. It is a coping mechanism. Salma can be very wealthy and famous, but had she been a white actress, she wouldn't have had to use her accent, spice, or attitude to please white audiences in a variety of roles she had to take in order to make it in hollywood.