Footnotes
Curation by Gabriela Román González
Showcasing the work of Bryan Giuseppi Rodriguez Cambana, Joiri Minaya, and José García Oliva
Presented during CASA Festival at Brixton House
11 - 15 October, 2023
Who gets to write the “main text”? Footnotes looks at the stories and people that the “main text” leaves out, showcasing works that delve into, and address, the complexities of diasporic experiences, politics, and the pursuit of a decolonised perspective in the arts.
José García Oliva, Removed for Conservation / Found-Acquired, 2021 - Work found and acquired at the British Museum toilet room. Apart from the frame embodying the decontextualisation of an appropriated ordinary object, the piece also represents the people cleaning the museum and their labour. A vast amount of pieces from this museum’s collection are originally from the countries where the cleaners come from.
Joiri Minaya, Labadee, 2017 - Labadee is a short video documenting parts of a Royal Caribbean cruise trip in Labadee, Haiti, and the dynamics that unfold in this privately-managed space (the space is fenced off and leased to Royal Caribbean until 2050). The subtitles in the video begin with text from the diary of Christopher Columbus when they first saw land, moving into a contemporary recount of the trip we’re seeing. It meditates on the exploitation, self-exploitation, performance and access control created by the system of tourism in the Caribbean, and, in linking it to Columbus’ Invasion through the first sentences in the subtitles, it traces the lineage of these contemporary spaces to colonisation.
Bryan Giuseppi Rodríguez Cambana - Afternoon Party for Traitors, 2018 - This piece delves into the possible definitions and/or perceptions behind the identity of a “traitor.” More so, what it means to self-identify as a “traitor” and be socialised or socialise as one. With this, also exploring the vocabulary we as people (Black, poor, and immigrant, male presenting), may use to understand the core essence of the self through the necessary but painful, disorientating process of "self-accountability."
José García Oliva - How May I Serve You? 2019 - 2023, which comprises the pieces: Keep on Smiling, 2022 ; We Use English Names, 2022 ; But S(Till) I Have A Job, 2022; Like to Us(E) My Real Name, 2022 - These artworks were part of a larger project commissioned by The World Transformed (TWT) that involved deeper research through open online conversations between customer service agents based in Pakistan, outsourced by UK companies. The pieces aim to raise awareness of the current structure of online corporate customer service systems, but also to humanise and reveal the experiences of those individuals hidden behind calls and online chats.
