[Many thanks to David Auerbach (UPR) for bringing this item to our attention.] Inés Katzenstein (MoMA journal) writes: “mulowayi iyaye nonó and mapenzi chibale nonó discover therapeutic and liberation in creating artwork—and discovering meals—past the boundaries of conventional establishments.”
Foodtopia, después de todo territorio (Foodtopia, After Each Territory), a movie by Las Nietas de Nonó, paperwork mulowayi iyaye nonó and mapenzi chibale nonó throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, after they subsisted for a time period solely on looking and gathering. The movie, which is screening as a part of MoMA PS1’s Higher New York 2021 and was made with the museum’s help, is an instance of the duo’s feminist, decolonial work, which focuses on the historical past of the oppression of Afro-diasporic communities within the Caribbean and the survival of their information.
On this dialog, the artists talk about their work’s relationship to territory, understood in its spatial in addition to historic meanings. Additionally they present perception into their observe and mode of working, which emphasize a self-organized method impartial from the help of establishments.
[Translated from Spanish by Christopher Winks.]
Inés Katzenstein: Your lives and work have crossed in a really productive manner. Residing and dealing collectively appear a part of the identical expertise. So I’d such as you to speak in regards to the Barrio San Antón, in Carolina, Puerto Rico, the place you reside, and whether or not you’re employed in one thing like a “studio.”
mulowayi iyaye nonó: Barrio San Antón is a spot with an abundance of pure sources: there are springs, fruit timber, a gully that traverses the barrio and connects to the San Juan Estuary, an infinite ancestral knowledge about curatives and the facility of vegetation, and a big inhabitants of iguanas. I keep in mind that when Hurricane Hugo occurred, I used to be 10 years previous and the very first thing I did when the cyclone had ended was to gather all of the fallen fruit. That was all we needed to eat till we ate the final cedar fruit and parboiled the final breadfruit. The barrio is cut up by a freeway that deprives us of the potential for strolling safely; add to this the issue of displacement, which is affecting folks’s high quality of life. For the reason that Nineteen Nineties, the folks of the barrio have been preventing for the areas which were affected by the completely different industries which were stationed in our group. This has led to a deterioration and abandonment of areas; it appears as if we’ll by no means cease preventing this. In 2017 they closed the three faculties in the neighborhood and this has additionally touched off one other avalanche of displacement.
I’m eager about working in studio and collaborative areas. However actually, I don’t assume what we do could be contained in any single area or in a studio as such. We transfer round so much; I’m additionally a group organizer. Our observe is devoted to having conversations with folks, exploring locations, strolling, sharing information with the elders. Studio area affords us extra of a limitation than a risk. Within the barrio now we have a home we inherited from our paternal grandparents. The area of the home capabilities like a type of archive which has a part of the household historical past. We invite folks there; a number of theatrical and efficiency items have been introduced there. On the similar time, it’s the place the place we retailer a few of the objects of our work. Now the home is in transition as a result of we’re collaborating on organizing a group area within the faculty that the federal government closed.
Inés: Might you discuss in regards to the creation of the so-called “Patio Taller” in your grandparents’ home?
mulowayi: At the moment my youngsters had been eight and 10 years previous, and this was a motivation to create a gathering area, a protected area, on the property that belonged to our grandparents. We created an arts workshop area throughout the summers, after which we opened an artist residency and created Handbook de bestiario doméstico (Handbook of Home Bestiary). Patio Taller was the seed of the a part of our observe that’s based mostly on organizing protected areas throughout the group. It was an area the place artwork was understood as an area for therapeutic and an change of information: to connect with the ancestral, to make handicrafts, no matter would give us a collective feeling of being at residence, like everyone cooking collectively within the cooking class. Patio Taller was a venture that operated between 2011 and 2019; issues there occurred organically and spontaneously. I can say that Patio Taller was a seed as a result of that’s the way it’s considered in my barrio. It advanced to an unimaginable extent, and we put collectively an bold and inclusive venture with a group of ladies that we’re part of.
mapenzi chibale nonó: In Patio Taller we might think about the potential for La Conde, which is a venture of Parceleras Afrocaribeñas, the community-based group we based in 2019 in collaboration with neighbors within the Barrio San Antón. La Conde was the varsity we, as nicely our father’s and neighbors, attended as youngsters. In 2017 it was closed by the Division of Training as a result of austerity insurance policies of the Fiscal Management Board. Since then, now we have channeled sources to cease the privatization of those lands and recuperate them for the good thing about the group utilizing the participatory-design methodology. Now La Conde has antiracist artwork, well being, and atmosphere programming.
Patio Taller, within the early days of Parceleras Afrocaribeñas, was one of many locations for growing the proposal for La Conde. We obtained collectively to arrange, coordinate, design, think about, make our collective check-ins, meet up with allied organizations, maintain planning breakfasts, create methods of restoration and advocacy. It was our principal base after we started growing the Undertaking. As soon as La Conde was rehabilitated in 2020, we noticed Patio Taller otherwise. Presently we’re rethinking the following stage of the area as a result of the necessity, when it comes to schooling and cultural and creative creation, has been growing since La Conde. Now we’re in a second of reflection on what we’ve discovered from this course of and the alternatives it has granted not solely to us as artists however to the group and our colleagues. [. . .]
For full article, see https://www.moma.org/journal/articles/716
[Photo above by Juan Carlos Malavé.]