Jaula (2018)

One-channel, color, sound, duration, loop.

Jaula, 2018, is a site-specific durational performance in response to the detention and separation of migrant families and the imprisonment of Latinx immigrants that have crossed the US border. I stand nude holding my arms up to my sides, in a “pat down” position, behind a fence in the woods of Vermont. This piece stages a performance of entrapment, depicting the Latinx body during routine strippings that happen under Border Patrol. Rendering the dangers of border crossing and the ways in which migrant people face their historical situation.

This piece is part of Pájaro Falling, a series of site-specific performances navigating my entanglements with contact, conflict, and violence. I use a transparent plastic tarp, my own blood, the nude body, a militant uniform, a fence, and movement to engage and recycle ideas of visibility, death, and traps. Investigating Jose Esteban Muñoz’s theory of “disidentification,” that positions queer world making on, with, and against dominant ideology, I disidentify with the militant and the conditions of being queer and Cuban. Contending what and who has the implied right to camouflage and concealment to disarticulate colonial discourses of authority. As I fail and fall within Cubanidad, these performances point to the intersection of my identity and the violence that results from misalignment with the cultural and ideological mainstream.