The Spiritual Process of Transition

2019 Latin American Triennial : Progressive Transition

THE SPIRITUAL PROCESS OF TRANSITION Khenya Makena

October 2 - December 11, 2019 Longwood Art Gallery @ Hostos 450 Grand Concourse at 149th Street, Room C-190, Bronx, NY 10451 Gallery Hours: Tues - Fri, 12 - 6pm

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:

Dió-genes Abreu, Aviva Aleph Valente Arana, María Bouquet Monica S Camin, Hubert Caño Ángel Delgado, Alexis Duque Borinquen Gallo, Sandra Monterroso & Miguel Trelles

Diógenes Abréu, Sleeping with the Enemy, 2010, Mixed Media Photo credit: Luis Rodriguez

The Spiritual Process of Transition

Specifically, this piece is a time stamp of current affairs related to United States border control and the deprivation of basic human rights for undocumented individuals. Migrants are being oppressed at border lines, and this targeting is intentional.

Historically, this land belongs to the indigenous people and bureaucracy has created a dangerous place for their descendants and those who need to become citizens.

The Longwood Art gallery hosts the cross-institutional installation of the 2019 Latin American Triennial: Progressive Transition. The exhibition explores the work of Latin American artists responding to the variety of transitions, past and present, occurring in their worlds. The work of two featured artists specifically comment on the impact of cultural transformation on individuals relating to their community and environment.

Individual identity is multifaceted in its conception. Our relationships to ourselves are composed of many learned behaviors. Cultural behavior is generationally passed down and integrated into ritual to preserve communal identity.

In the work Sleeping with The Enemy, the artist Dió-genes Abreu includes the symbolism of a recurring crucifix to signify the influence of colonial religion on the DominicanAmerican community. An assemblage of crucifixes is situated against a white wall, and above the many crosses is a visual of black children taking the Kenneth Clark Doll test – a psychological evaluation developed to determine the impact of racism on the

The work includes several tangible artifacts. His piece juxtaposes small religious relics, statues and material with soil representing the ubiquitous earth. It evokes the truth of imperial desire by joining the Dominican flag, the Haitian flag and the American flag sewn together in a quilt. These are nations that have historically competed in conquest and that have survived under shifting political powers and dictatorships.

The quilt-covered bed stands on a plot of soil, like a grave, and on the top of the sheet in the center is a nest with two birds sitting on their eggs. Abreu’s work depicts the impermanence of the human- made notion of nationalism amidst the infinite natural world.

self-perception of black children. The results of the experiment concluded that racial prejudice, discrimination and segregation created an inferiority complex in black children.

In Abreu’s piece, the children are shown choosing the lighter doll and assigning positive characteristics to it. The doll that is chosen resembles the white Jesus Christ, a legendary saint in the Christian practices of people of color. It is evident that while ritual is integral to communal maintenance, these learned rituals have been whitewashed.

The individuals who belong to these communities are currently affected by this historic whitewashing. Abreu’s work is symbolic of shifting attitudes toward identity within marginalized communities of color in America. The emotional balance of community is contingent on the internal balance of its members. When a community is divided by insidious racial biases, the individuals produced within that social context are all affected internally. Abreu suggests that when people have learned to hate themselves, that behavior will manifest within their interpersonal relationships.

Another piece in the exhibition, Valente Arana’s Untitled Mural reflects a response to migration and comments on the dire conditions for undocumented people crossing borderlines. Arana spoke of being inspired to create this piece after reading an article about a mother and child finding poisoned water in the Arizona desert while crossing by foot. The subject of the piece is a divine mother adorned by sunrays, carrying her child at the center of empty water bottles. The mother is presented as the center of the elements, as if she were a deity. She is carrying her thirsty child and facing persecution for making this journey. Arana spoke on the concept of persecution happening to mortals as frequently and intensely as it is said to happen to the divine. The way archetypal divine figures are persecuted in oral history and holy texts, mirrors how people who belong to marginalized groups face cyclical suffering in the pursuit of freedom.

The piece evokes the subject of protection and dominion. The mother guards the child during this movement. On their journey these two are deprived of water, a necessity for survival. Nonetheless, her perseverance is eternal, and she is committed to completing this pilgrimage. The will to survive in the face of death is a reality currently experienced by undocumented individuals and diasporic communities of color.

In its entirety, this exhibit illustrates the experiences of people securing their identities and livelihoods amidst the shifting tides of their worlds.

However, these pieces specifically highlight the process of transition in relation to the spiritual. Both Arana’s mural and Abreu’s mixed media installation illustrate that the process of maintaining identity and resisting erasure exists both internally and externally. A community’s struggle to survive is rooted in shifting attitudes in both the material and emotional world.

The 2019 Latin American Art Triennial: Progressive Transitions features many pieces portraying the difficulty and necessity of spiritual, political and communal metamorphosis. Through the intentions of the work of these artists, it is clear that transition is inevitable and vital to the expression and preservation of cultural experience.

Khenya Makena is an audiovisual artist and writer based in the Bronx. Her work exists to convey the intersectional identities of people within the African Diaspora. She aims to use her work as an archive of queer black experiences. She has created many visual projects, including a short film called Sanctuary, reflecting the queer black community.

The intention of her work is to energetically affect and disrupt narratives that no longer serve the highest good of these communities. @obeahooman