In Spring 2022, my work was selected for Artifact Bold—a juried exhibition of Graphic Design, New Media, Illustration, Printmaking, and the Expanded Field—that takes place at the Sechrest Art Gallery at High Point University in North Carolina.
Work: “La mama de Alguien” —Someone’s Mom (mixed-media collage + illustration)
Juror: Meena Khalili (University of South Carolina)
ART STATEMENT
In 2014, I began to explore topics related to identity, heritage, visual culture, and auto-ethnography. Previously, I had collaborated with multiple non-profit organizations, indigenous communities, underserved populations, women’s groups, and entrepreneurs in the United States, México, and Costa Rica, on projects resulting in a variety of design artifacts-books, brand design systems, websites, creativity workshops, packaging, and expressive typography exhibitions. In most instances, culturally preparing all the involved design practitioners before going out to the field was critical. Working with stakeholders and populations in conditions of exclusion outside of our living and work contexts (specifically, (us) design students and instructors and other participants from dominant cultures) is, in my opinion, the greatest challenge in the field of social design. The methods and the time spent on this cultural preparation often seem insufficient. The psychological and emotional distance caused by differences in language, poor understanding of cultural traditions, and the different living conditions of multinational teams, inevitably have an effect on creative processes. As I observed in the field, knowledge hierarchies, vertical work dynamics, and (conscious and unconscious) imposition of ideas from designers onto the expected design users, help perpetuate colonialist and oppressive practices that have historically characterized traditional design canons.
As a result, I became interested in ‘vulnerability’ as an intentional state that promotes horizontality. For my design research and practice, being vulnerable in spaces of design collaboration turned out to be a leveling practice that led to a better understanding of each other’s personhood and expertise based on our unique lived experiences. Opening up about my identity, heritage, traditions, and self-image through orality or team-building activities helped me identify circumstances where social design collaboration may be abusive or disrespectful. As a visual storyteller, vulnerability also became a new form of inspiration—our mental image reservoirs, memories, and beliefs always find a way to present themselves concretely. La Mamá de Alguien (Someone’s Mom) is part of my most vulnerable design work to date. This intervened digital collage is one of approximately twelve other design pieces I completed during the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic (specifically, Spring and Summer of 2021)—a time of isolation, depression, yearning, and languishing. As an individual who has suffered from mental health issues for over 20 years, my visual explorations on vulnerability have become critical to my own healing processes.
La Mamá de Alguien is a short narrative thrown into the darkness. It is an internal dialogue. It is a momentary revival of unhealed trauma. As I continue to struggle with the death of my mother in 2005, the Covid-19 pandemic deepened the void caused by her absence. The extreme (and avoidable) loss of lives due to the Covid-19 virus around the world triggered memories of my mother’s passing in very vivid ways. In particular, the vision of her peach-colored coffin became a mental symbol of the indescribable suffering caused by her absence.
