ARTIST STATEMENT
Carnaval is an ethnographic mini-collection based on the historical and contemporary celebration of the Cuban Carnival. By manipulating fibres and blending the colours of the textiles she depicts the sounds and feelings of diasporic performed and produced identity. The 5 looks that make- up her collection will represent various symbols and archetypes relative to Cuban culture, colonialism and Carnival as a whole. Many who visit my home, remember Cubans as friendly, energetic, happy and kind. When foreigners visit the resorts and social clubs, they participate in “performed expression”. They see the performances catered to them as joyful, boisterous, sensual, and mystifying. A macabre dance for survival engineered to delight and bewitch. The body put to work in the fields and in the homes became the body gazed on a stage, mechanical yet abstract, sexualized and mythologized. The woman on stage becomes the dancer and although her expression is true it is stripped because she is now the entertainment to the masses that disempowered her ancestors.
The expression in which I wish to engulf myself is one that is produced. Produced from relief, joy, and passion. One that is not based on the pleasure of the viewer but of the self. Hot summer days and nights; the release of tension in self-expression. People from all walks would join together in the community and produce these arts to celebrate life. For just a few days, they could be free. Historically from slavery and hard labour. Today from poverty, stress, exploitation and monotony. I view this as escapism into a vivid multicultural communal dreamscape.
