aquí estamos/here we are

Follow Queer Cultural Center’s Instagram the week of June 22 – 28, 2020 to view Pati’s latest work.

Project Statement
pari/no/pari
El video busca insertar una memoria construida en la mente de las personas de este pari que nunca pasó en El Hangar en Santurce. Si el archivo visual existe, entonces estuvimos ahí; tan cerca, que no hubo más alternativa que tocarnos.

The video looks to insert a constructed memory in the mind of the people of this party that never happened in “El Hangar” in Santurce. If the visual archive exists, then we were there; so close, that there wasn’t another alternative other than touching each other.

Lis / Simón
A veces Lissette, otras Simón, madre de dos y siempre trujillane. De familia pobre y aunque con algún contacto con la academia prefiero acentuar la cultura popular desde la cual exploro el género no-binario y las distintas formas de mi ser. Luego de un periodo en la diáspora y escapando a la violencia de género regreso a Puerto Rico. Con el regreso viene también el redescubrimiento de mi misme. Primero, la inconformidad y frustración con los roles y expresiones obligadas para el género femenino; luego la rabia y el desprecio hacia la masculinidad tóxica y todo el andamiaje patriarcal para así entender como prioridad no reproducir dichos comportamientos hacia el interior de mi otredad, de mi drag cuir. De este caldo rebelde, de desconstrucción, popular, no-binario, ateo, sórdido y burlón nace Simón. Trabajador incansable para sobrellevar las vicisitudes de este Puerto Rico patriarcal, capitalista, transfóbico, colonial, clasista, racista. Se parte el lomo pero no como oda al trabajo burgués, sino para deconstruir y crear así nuevas formas de vivir para todes.

Simón es entonces el “yal”, el cafre, el macho pueblerino, ridículo hasta la burla que a través de los extremos grotescos te invita a una lectura de las toxicidades de lo masculino y lo femenino y deconstruirlo; y a través de la fantasía, las realidades, lo posible y el erotismo cotidiano explorar lo no-binario para construir(nos) nuevas realidades.

Sometimes Lissette, other times Simón, mother of two and always “trujillane”. From a poor family, and although had some contact with academia, prefers to accent popular culture from where I explore non-binary gender and the different ways of being and existing. After a period in the diaspora and escaping gender violence I’m back in Puerto Rico. With this return also comes the rediscovery of myself. First, the unconformity and frustration with the forced roles and expressions in the female gender; then the rage and the contempt towards toxic masculinity and all the patriarchal scaffoldings hence in that way to understand how it’s a priority not to reproduce those behaviors towards the inside of my otherness, to my queer drag. From this rebel stew; of deconstrtuction, popular, non-binary, atheist, sordid and sardonic, Simón was born. Tireless worker to overcome the vicissitudes of this patriarchal, capitalist, transphobic, colonial, classist, racist Puerto Rico. Works really hard but not as an ode to the bourgeois work, if not to deconstruct and create new ways of living for everyone.

Simón is then “yal”, the “cafre”, the town macho, ridicule all the way until the mockery through the grotesque extremes invites you to a reading on the masculine toxicities and the feminine and deconstruct it; a through the fantasy, the realities, the possible and the everyday erotism explore the non-binary in order to construct(s) new realities.

Juan Carlos Malavé
Mi nombre es Juan Carlos Malavé y soy artista visual. Trabajo la documentación utilizando la fotografía, el video, su posibilidad de archivo y manipulación para presentar y proponer otras posibilidades. Me interesa lo cotidiano desde la exploracion de una percepcion que abra nuevos campos de posibilidad en la misma realiad y el como la miramos, un juego con lo real y lo posible. Mi fotografía es queer y no participa o intenta no participar de un juego normativo de la fotografía, me fijo en lo dicidente, en la otredad y todo lo que se puede trabajar desde ahí con el proposito de visibilizar y hacer precencia combativa dentro de un mundo heteronormativo capitalista.

My name is Juan Carlos Malavé and I’m a visual artist. I work with documentation utilizing photography, video, their possibility to archive and manipulate in order to present and propose other possibilities. I’m interested in the every day from the exploration of a perception that opens new fields of possibilities in the same reality and how we look at it, a game with the real and the possible. My photography is queer and it doesn’t participate or attempts not to participate in photography’s normative game, I’m fixated in the dissident, the otherness and everything that can be work from there with the purpose of visibility and to make a combative presence in a heteronormative capitalist world.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Aquí estamos / here we are is an online exhibition, an act of collective solidarity, regeneration and celebration between queer artists from the Bay Area and Puerto Rico redefining the domestic space. Under the circumstances of the shelter-in-place in the Bay Area and the lockdown in Puerto Rico, the question of what a domestic space is, what it should be for and what it should do, has shifted. Aquí estamos / here we are fosters conversations and collaborations amongst artists from two places that are home to joyful, persevering, and active communities. As queers of color, re-imagining our futures includes rejecting the past as “the normal” and questioning our own relationships with what is considered a domestic, private or safe space.

Once a week throughout June, artists will share work through intimate online conversations and a virtual exhibition that will take over Queer Cultural Center’s Instagram. They are creating work by rethinking what a domestic space is and could be. At the end of June, all the artists will gather to have an open conversation with the show’s curator on how we reimagine collective futures from a domestic space. These creations and conversations will be in a digital publication available later this year.

View more work from the exhibition at X-Patterns