[-empyre-] Alter-mapping, alter-passage, and altering-art

[pau delgado]

I've been struggling to follow all the conversations, firstly because of
the language (it is still difficult for me to read in English, and I guess
that's one of the consequences of actually being a global immigrant), but
also probably because of the intellectual density of the discussions. I am
not at all an expert in the topics or refugees/immigration. That is why I
decided to start my participation from personal or closer experiences
(talking about Uruguay as a country where nomadism and immigration are
genuinely in its conception, and telling its experience with Syrian
refugees).

Simon says " it is irritating that cases, in their economic, humanitarian,
political, or publicity, aspects are irreducible". All these aspects are
assembled in such a way that it makes it very difficult for me to analyse
them. I cannot have a 'final' position in these discussions, I just can
approach the topic from different angles and layers, but I am never able to
see clearly through these entanglements.

As it has been mentioned throughout the discussions, there are aspects of
ethics implied (the ethics of the hosting countries and its people – and
our own personal ethics on how do we position ourselves, and how do we
handle and process all these TV images of bombings, children, destroyed
cities, people dying while trying to reach new territories, etc).  On the
other hand there are economic and political aspects involved (with so many
layers, some of them were mentioned, like the control of oil companies, the
profits of weapon manufacturers, and not just the 'from' but also the 'to'
of immigration flows / what in my opinion makes it different to choose
Germany or the UK than Uruguay as a place to move and actually stay). Then
there's the publicity and the way in which all this is being told to us
through media (in the UK now this is clearly the main issue in the news
everyday). And finally how could we (artists) be 'hands on'? In Ai Weiwei's
way? Going to the camps? Displaying statistical data and images of the
'refugee crisis', like Massive attack is now doing in their last tour?
(very effectively indeed). I feel paralyzed in front of this overwhelming
panorama, and I confess that I tend to blur everything as a self-defense*.
I found very interesting some of the projects presented here, like
Ricardo's 'La herramienta transfronteriza para inmigrantes', and I
acknowledge the fact that the 'Electronic Disturbance Theater' has been
addressing these issues for so long, and this allows them to develop a more
sharp intervention/project. Without a background in this subject, I
wouldn't know how to be hands on as an artist/person.




*(I am better in working on activist projects related to misogyny and
patriarchy, because even though it is also overwhelming, I know more about
it, and I know better how to disentangle some of the core issues).




2016-02-16 19:52 GMT+00:00 Alva Mooses <alva.mooses at gmail.com>:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> In responding to the topic of networks and migration in the Mexico/U.S.
> context, I think of Sarah Lynn Lopez’s research, The Remittance House:
> Architecture of Migration in Rural Mexico. Lopez writes:
>
> Remittance houses are emblematic of a profound shift in rural Mexican
> society. Perhaps the single most striking quality of the remittance
> construction is the social distance embedded in its form. Scholars of the
> built environment can contribute to the study of how migration is
> transforming rural Mexican society by analyzing changes in spatial format
> both migrants’ places of origin and points of arrival. Social relations
> stretched across geographies and exacerbated by distance increasingly
> define places. Places in Mexico are marked by the absences and familial
> fragmentation that constitute ‘migration as a way of life’. These absences
> are a necessary precondition for migrants to realize their dream houses.
>
> Over the past year I have been working with four NY-based artists that are
> originally from Mexico, Cuba, Chile and Brazil to form the collective Grupo
> < > <http://cargocollective.com/grupomasquemenosque>. We have been
> meeting a couple times a month and corresponding with one another via email
> to create a collective text that connects personal narratives of origin to
> our work. Throughout the text we are able to discuss our distinct
> experiences as a refugee, immigrant, the experience of temporary work
> abroad and diaspora. We repeatedly describe the architecture of the spaces
> that we have lived in, the geography and language; at times multiple voices
> become one.
>
> This is a clip from one of our first shared readings of the text:
> https://:.com/155157046 <https://vimeo.com/155157046>
>
> We are currently discussing ways for our Grupo < > project to extend
> beyond the five of us.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Alva
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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