Disclosure: I want to be respectful of my collaborator Janet and disclose that this following
post is my ideas only and the questions that I am asking at the moment. Through
our ongoing conversation, our project may depart from these initial disparate
questions and bear something completely new.
An aceracamiento between America and Cuba may nurture micro to macro relationships ranging from mere eye contact between two beings to a diplomatic alliance of two previously hostile regimes.
The type of aceracamiento I want to explore is a borderless intimacy between subjects of such regimes whose bodies bear collective historical trauma, oppression, and U.S intervention. By placing these bodies within close proximity, the collaborators may focus more on the commonalities of the American and the Cuban than ideological differences of the countries.
I am a South Korea born American who immigrated 8 years ago. My ethnicity as a 'South' Korean is the direct result of U.S intervention to combat communism during the Korean War. As a child of the divide, the silence from my grandparents who survived the war and whose siblings got lost during the war subconsciously impacts and burdens my body. Korea was also a colony of Japan and the animosity from this era still traverses through my generation.
Janet is from Taiwan whose country also bears a complex diplomatic relationship with China, Japan, and US. Taiwan was also colonized by Japan during the same era. Additionally, during the Cold War, Jimmy Carter severed relations with Taiwan and formally recognized Communist China.
Defining the peoples of the Americas is my point of departure. And tracing the history of such American, her family's origin, her country's origin, her country's origin in relation to another country's imperialism.
Following themes recur amongst our identities: break from Communism, US intervention through the process, and being grand-grand children of colonialism. These themes may as well define the Cuban identity from our standpoint. Recognizing these common themes draws an overlap and creates room for a coalitional force.
Project El Aceracamiento imagines a different future for America and Cuba. My idea is to dream this imagination from micro bodies who bear the burdens of macro history. Performance art would be my desired medium. Given the medium's ideal functions in Cuban art scene: portable, cheap, self-reliant. From close-up we may be different, when zoom-ed all the way out - we carry very similar concepts.
This is what's on my mind currently. I haven't spoken to my collaborator or strategized a specific gameplan for how our performance art (or if it'll even be performance art) will unfold. We're still thinking.
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