BODIES OF WATER
BODY AS A PRISON : PRISON AS A BODY
Medium: Two-channel video, 10:06 Min. Inflatable pool, LED lights, water jug, artificial grass and costumes on wood stands.
Year: 2016
Exhibited:
▷ ARTBO / Antisistémicas “Cuerpos de Agua” / Bogotá, Colombia / April, 2018
▷ SVA GALLERY // Flatiron Project Space - Visual & Critical Studies / New York City / December 7, 2017 to January 6, 2018
▷ TAV GALLERY // ‘Faketopia’ / Tokyo, Japan / June 23 to July 7, 2017
▷ SPRING/BREAK Art Show / The Water Mirror / New York City / March 1 - 6, 2017
▷ Contemporary Istanbul / GAIA Gallery / Istanbul, Turkey / Nov 3 - 6, 2016
▷ Hunter College Art Gallery / New York City / May 19 - June 4, 2016
Body or work:
▷ BOOK of Bodies of Water
▷ Bodies of Water INTERFERENCE
▷ Bodies of Water: REDACTED
▷ Cuerpos de Agua
In August 2016 a historical decision was made in the U.S.A. The first transgender man and political prisoner was granted the right to undergo medical transition in federal prison. Last year the U.S. army approved hormone treatment for imprisoned private Chelsea Manning, deeming it “medically appropriate and necessary.” This year Marius Mason Doctors at FMC Carswell, which houses about 1,400 female inmates are in the process of procuring the medications Mason will need to develop male characteristics.
‘Bodies of Water’ explores the themes of gender migration, life inside the prison industrial complex and the communication barriers created by such infrastructures with the outside so-called “free” world. Prisons have the strongest border enforcement of any area on the planet, acting like mega organisms that feel foreign and temporal to the people that call them home; where uniformity is the law and gender expression is forbidden. Questions a arise, such as: What is to be a gender migrant and feeling foreign inside one’s body, trapped –at the same time--inside another foreign body; the prison industrial complex? The video
explores the journey of the artist trying to communicate with political prisoner Marius Mason held in a women’s prison in Texas. A member of the Earth Liberation Front charged with Arson of a genetically modified organisms Monsanto research facility. When the person --deemed a domestic terrorist-- is
finally allowed to communicate to the artist, the call is heavily monitored and what the prisoner can discuss limited; the artist asks: What do you think about water?
Water has been the way of transportation most often used by people seeking freedom. Water symbolizes freedom, mutability and changeability. However when water is trapped, regulated and contained it looses those abilities. The opposite of freedom and mobility is akin to institutional water jugs. When the travel on a conveyer belt in the water bottling plant, they remind us of the loss of freedom, imprisonment and containment.
◻︎ Video Stills:
◻︎ SHOW VIEW I: SVA GALLERY // Flatiron Project Space - Visual & Critical Studies / New York City / December 7, 2017 to January 6, 2018
▷ TAV GALLERY // ‘Faketopia’ / Tokyo, Japan / June 23 to July 7, 2017
◻︎ SHOW VIEW II: SPRING/BREAK Art Show / The Water Mirror / New York City / March 1 - 6, 2017
◻︎ SHOW VIEW III: Hunter College Art Gallery / New York City / May 19 - June 4, 2016
