PERFORMACE ARCHIVE: On Friday, June 19th, La Pocha Nostra curated an international performance experiment to support Juneteenth, Black Lives Matter and essential artist workers. 12 artists, 8 countries, and 3 hours. This event was hosted remotely by Grace Exhibition Space in New York City. All proceeds directly to artists and Black Lives Matter. I was excited to have the opportunity to perform with LPN and be welcomed by the international performance art community! More soon! Adelante!
Ritual
NYC: Livable Futures: Climate Gathering and Performance Ritual
Livable Futures is headed to New York City to kick off our national tour. We will start at Barnard College at Columbia University’s Motion Lab from January 12-17, 2020. Read more about this event here.
Recently, I was awarded a Livable Futures Grant for collaboration. I was asked to respond to three questions on the community page. Visit the Livable Futures website here.
Here are my responses:
What makes more livable futures for you?
For me, a pursuit to re-imagine justice, resiliency, and love against the current oppressive or destructive ways of living would be a start in making the future livable. I believe it is crucial to create a realm of care, ethics, and compassion to work towards balance in our overly consumptive world. These liberal acts help to reconstruct/heal dilapidated structures in our social, economic, and industrial ways of living but prioritize these acts within the environmental sphere. As an artist, I think creating performative/experiential environments in a community of co-creation kickstarts the imagination needed to unlock the potential of our future.
A livable future responds to crisis, injustice, and inequality.
A livable future is continuously adapting.
A livable future makes and holds space for all.
A livable future is a possibility manifested through imagination.
A livable future redefines freedom.
A livable future is not always polite.
A livable future is transparent.
A livable future thrives in equity.
A livable future redefines love and care.
What are you reading, viewing, listening to right now?
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017), Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019) by adrienne maree brown
Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology by Jennifer A. González
Black Brown & Beige: Surrealist Writings from Africa and the Diaspora (2009) edited by Franklin Rosemont and Robin D.G. Kelley
Dawn (2012) by Octavia E. Butler
On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal by Naomi Klein
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Ahmanson-Murphy Fine Arts Imprint) by Ronald Rael
What practices are sustaining you?
Sustaining my practice is daydreaming, hyper creativity in co-creative environments, performance as protest, and ritualized self-care.
Sun’s kiss on my skin
The desert
Aesthetics in environmental design
Home
Community
Daily improvisation
Mi Familia
Napping
Sustento
Artmaking in all its capacities
Conversations
Immersing into books/movies/shows
Truth
The moment when I am told something is impossible
-LROD
©LROD
Home Alter: Living Forward
Date: November 2, 2017
Home Alter: Dedicated to mi abuela Martinez y mi Tio Rubio
Design: LROD + Becky Rubio
Lighting: Meg Fox
Photo: Devin Marie Munoz
What does it mean to remember someone when they have passed on? To hold onto the memories to keep them alive means so much to those who celebrate Dia de Los Muertos and invest in a joyous death culture. My home alter has developed from my desire to connect with my loved ones. Home alters are still huge focal points of homes in southern Mexico. These spaces are the heartbeat of the home usually consuming up to half or sometimes a full room. The alters have different components to help the loved ones make their way back to the living on special occasions such as marigolds, fire, food, and candles. Symbolic meanings and religious meanings entangle in what is pagan and what is holy. Some might find this joining of spiritual and corporal morbid. However, to grieve one must celebrate the life lost by having a moment each year to share the stories of loved ones with younger generations is important and keeps the ancestry intact.
I have been fascinated with death since I was a young child. Mostly because my Tia would take me to the desert to these communal gatherings. We would meditate for 3 hours and eat for another three hours in communal gatherings. Beautiful time, she is a reiki, yogi, and layer of hands. However, I experienced my first laying of hands on someone who had passed and I have never looked back. My investment in learning about the funeral industry grew, and learning other death practices for different cultures around the world exploded. There are so many ways one can choose to be buried these days. Quite beautiful. However, I always return to the sitting with death, maybe because I have been around so much of it, grief, loss, and mourning. I understand. Either way, these moments of recalling, celebrating, returning, and honoring–cultivate a deep stillness inside my body.
The work here makes visible the deep connection and importance to those we have lost. My small daily moments with loved ones whom I can no longer visit or call helps me move life forward. I am my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and so on. I am my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and so on. Branches of love, care, and family are the ones I desire most as my lineage expands and decays.
©LROD