A Time and Place for the Arts: Winter Art Season in Palm Beach County

Transnational Imaginaries:

Decolonizing the Creative

by Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet

The term transnational Latino is associated with a nationalist framework, product of the exchange taking place at the US-Mexican border. This renders invisible an organic history of US Latinxs interconnecting territories such as the Caribbean, Central America, Latin America, Brazil, and First Nation Native American territories. It also obscures the factual military occupation of the southwest, once a colonial Mexican territory under the Spanish Empire and where many indigenous and interethnic subjects trace their ancestral roots, as well as the present situation of Puerto Rico. As consequences of this misunderstanding, the geopolitical and cultural locations of the US Latinx Diaspora are hard to comprehend, especially when border knowledge and cultural practices are taking place across territories not marked by the physical national divided. The imagined geography of the US/Latino territories confronts issues of citizenship, undocumented migration, ethnicity, race, sexuality, class, and decolonization to produce social, political, and cultural effects in the larger context of the United States. How can US Latinxs make sense of a national identity when we are permeated by many transnational experiences?

When thinking about the intangible transnational Latino territories, I envision a theoretical and historical interdisciplinary mapping of a crossroads embracing the creative and critical variable intersections among the US Latinxs, Afro-Latinxs, Caribbean, Latin Americans, Indigenous and First Nations Native Americans, Arab Americana, and Asian Americana Diasporas. At the crossroads emanates a complex system of knowledge (decolonial thinking), which weaves several epistemologies to enact a multilayer-multidirectional understanding of the senses, of knowledge acquisition and production, of historical understanding, of a variety of creative productions, as well as a multiplicity of social and political interactions.

The mechanisms of modern Anglo-Eurocentred modern/colonial matrix reinforces the visual apparatus, chronological time, linearity, the hierarchy of the object based production, and the illusion of economic development and progress. This matrix is engine by the exploitation of nature for economic gains, cognitive and cultural racism, and the constrains of the erotic power. Institutional power in the social sphere works at the deep levels of our bodies, experiences and memories. The heteronormative patriarchal scientific rationalist logic of coloniality still managing our corporal responses, slaving the creative process and cultural expressions to the dark side of modernity and, at the same time, blocks the access to the wisdom and ancestral knowledge alive at the crossroads of these interconnected Diasporas. Therefore, we must focus on the ways in which the oppressive nature of the ideology of the visual affects the sensorium, the subjective experience, and the critical and creative process of Indigenous, Afro descendants, Caribbean, and US Transnational Latinxs critical thinkers and cultural workers.

As we delink from Anglo-Eurocentric aesthetics and forms of representation, we travel closer to our imagined decolonial AestheSis, or vida sensitiva as it is known in many Diaspora territories empowered by indigenous ancestral knowledge. The I/We performative decolonial critical thinker, artist and writer imagines cultural production in relation to larger Diaspora territories and their heterogeneous histories/herstories. Photography has evolved in the last fifteen years in the US Latinx/Latin American Diaspora to overcome the medium relation and association to realism. Net Art Latino demonstrates how the hypertextual variable architectures imagined by the net artists are historically and culturally weaved into creative imaginary landscapes originating at this side of the Atlantic. The organic transnational historical relations between the Mexican, the Xicanxs at the border/frontera cultural locations constantly reconfigure the heterogeneous creative movements across the border. The actual presence of Indigenous and African ancestral knowledge, as well as the use of Maya Yucatec, Vèvè, Abakua, and Kongo Palo Monte writing languages and wisdom are intrinsic elements of the political identities and the creative expressions of some of the artists located at the interconnected crossroads.

A critique of the nation state ideology demonstrates how the cultural production of Cuban American artists has been double marginalized and displaced due to the inherent racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and conservative politics within the dominant discourses of the first wave of Cuban exiles and also by the leftist fetishism over the Marxist Eurocentric heteronormative patriarchal ideological rhetoric of the Castro’s government, which in 1959 it auto proclaimed as the leader of the Cuban revolution.

Decolonial artists employ creative practices and decolonial strategies such as delinking, remembering, cimarronaje, and ancestral memory to detach from the modern/colonial matrix and search for knowledge in the location erased and/or displaced by coloniality. I invite the readers to understand how the remaining structural foundation of the colonial matrix is a geographical Anglo-Eurocentric spatial projection, which claims the universal truth of the construction of geography and spatial relations. And outside the borders of this matrix, there are interconnected Diaspora territories which nurture the cultural productions of artists at a crossroads inhabited by the presence of US Latino, Latin American, First Nations, Caribbean, Brazilian, and Africana Americana cultural and socio experiential sensitivities, knowledges, and creative practices.

Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet Photo Credit: performance was supported by FCA (Foundation for Contemporary Arts). @CreativeArtsSchoolDelray @OldSchoolSquareCreativeArtsSchool LEARN SOM

Effective use of art and aesthetic methods in activism by Mary Jo Aagerstoun

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Effective Use of Art and Aesthetic Methods in Activism

by Mary Jo Aagerstoun

Why is it, I wonder, that activist art is so often seen as limited to posters or demonstration props? There is a rich tradition of art for activism reaching back to ancient history’s processions and spectacles. The common denominator is a “pattern language” consisting of flexible, interlinked tools that allow practitioners to apply them in unique ways in different situations.

Essentially, activist art is analogous to theater. The process includes coming up with the central idea, creating a story, developing a script, rounding out the key roles and the responsibilities of those “playing” them, casting for the roles, rehearsals, costume, prop and scene design and making. Artists must be engaged with every stage of the process of creating activist art, not just called on at the last minute to come up with a well-designed logo, banner or puppet. And, all of this must be done in conjunction with the advocates and specialists with deep knowledge of the subject.

In our current (2017) situation and going forward, I hope it is clear that not only are activist interventions that apply great aesthetics needed, they are required. We need actions that continue, expand, and localize mobilizations (like the current RESIST actions across the country) with indelible images that burn into the public consciousness. We need actions that amplify the warnings from our scientists, back up the legal strategies of advocates, and are based in careful forethought and planning. It will not be enough for our actions addressing the rapidly morphing political threats attacking from all sides, to pursue unvarying strategies. We must be prepared with a toolkit of diverse methods and a tactical mindset.

And, artists themselves must have courage. Even when not engaging activist art practice, most artists today feel their precarity, marginalization and vulnerability daily.

So, what would such a truly effective use of art and aesthetic methods in activism look like? Some great ones are in my 2015 essay for Love the Everglades Movement: http://www.lovetheeverglades.org/blog/effective-resistance-dreaming-the-future-we-need

And, here are a few more of my favorites: --the now venerable Guerrilla Girls. Sometimes it is crucial to hide your true identity. Many artists fear engaging in high profile activist art interventions, and for very good reasons. Artists who act outside the gallery and museum on controversial issues of importance are under suspicion and attack both inside and outside the art world. The identity of the GGs is by now, three decades on, a public secret. Largely because, in 2017 their popularity has not waned, and they exhibit and perform activism across the planet.

--Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping choir. Definitely not Guerrilla, this band of pranksters have, since 1999, skillfully deployed humor, irony and music to bring the sordid activities of corporations and academia to light. Viz this superb action “exorcising” the robobee at Harvard University a couple of years ago.

Natalie Jeremijenko’s “Art of the Eco-Mindshift.”. The project of hers I love best is the X Clinic in which Dr. J (an engineer and an artist who teaches at NYU), sets up her clinic in high traffic areas, inviting passersby into an “environmental diagnosis” in which the “clinicians” hear out the issue the person is most concerned about, then writes a “prescription” for action s/he can take. Dr. J says: “We work with IMpatients rather than PATIENTS!” A frequent prescription is urban farming Dr. J calls the FARMacy. Truly worth it to catch Dr. Jeremijenko’s TED talk https://www.ted.com/talks/natalie_jeremijenko_the_art_of_the_eco_mindshift)

Mary Jo Aagerstoun has studied a lot of activist art history and theories of cultural activism. She enjoys brainstorming with likeminded folk on how to get epic stuff out there that can change the way things are. She lives and schemes in West Palm Beach, FL. See her on Facebook, or contact her at: mjaagerstoun@gmail.com

The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens by Martin Barnes Lorber

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The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens

by Martin Barnes Lorber

The Morikami complex is a remarkable and actually unique marriage if Culture and Nature. Of all of the American museums which hold Japanese art in their collections, the Morikami is the only one in this country that specializes in the day-by-day forms and history of Japanese life, customs and festivals. The Museum’s mission statement makes their purpose for the public clear, “…to engage a diverse audience by presenting Japanese cultural experiences that educate and inspire.” This mission has been accomplished with cultural inspiration, flourish and outreach.

Like much of south Florida in the early years of the twentieth century, Palm Beach County was a land of agriculture. Orange and other groves predominated here and even the present-day neighborhood of El Cid in West Palm Beach was a pineapple plantation while the area surrounding the present Palm Beach International Airport was filled with orange groves.

The site of today’s Morikami Museum and Gardens started as a pineapple plantation in 1903 by the New York University-educated Japanese, Jo Sakai (1874-1923), and about fifteen other Japanese. Its purpose was to introduce new crops and methods to improve Florida’s agricultural economy. It was called Yamato, the ancient name for Japan, but failed in its mission by the early 1920s, but the site remained in Japanese hands and is now the remarkable Morikami Museum and Gardens.

Since opening in 1977, the Morikami has been the center in Florida for Japanese art and native Japanese culture. The Museum is replete with rotating exhibitions, tea ceremonies performed monthly in the Seishin-an tea house and educational outreach programs with local schools and organizations. Japanese traditional festivals are celebrated for the public several times a year and the Morikami, like no other museum in America, beautifully accomplishes their mission to introduce the daily, living culture of Japan to Florida residents and visitors alike.

As an example of the human nature of its exhibitions, the current one is Out of the Blue: Japanese Indigo Textiles, on view until January 21st. It is drawn primarily from the Morikami Museum Collections and features a range of indigo-dyed costume and textiles, including kimono, samurai jackets, festival robes, firemen’s coats, futon covers, and wrapping cloths.

The museum building itself contains three exhibition galleries, a 225-seat theater, an authentic tea house with viewing gallery, a research library, classrooms, a museum store, the Cornell Cafe and lakeside terraces for a panoramic view while dining. It is called the Yamato-kan, named for the ancient, sacred Japan; it opened in 1993 and is styled after a Japanese aristocratic villa. The Museum and Gardens are surrounded by their own two hundred-acre park with nature trails, pine forests and picnic areas.

Sharing center stage with the. Museum are the Gardens, designed by Hochi Kurisu. It is almost as if the gardens are a part of the Museum building itself and flow out from it. There are a number of different gardens in styles dating from the eighth century to the twentieth so that a stroll through these gardens is less of a walk than a flow.

Nestled within these gardens is a spectacular collection of bonsai, the Japanese version of the Chinese art of tree miniaturization, penjing. There are numerous examples in several traditional styles and include such trees as Chinese juniper, Chinese elm, Fujian tea, Black olive and others. This really is a time to pause, because here one can begin to understand the concept of the miniaturization of Nature for its cosmic meanings, all whilst standing in the middle of Nature, created by the hand of man, but without making it known.

Morikami Museum and Gardens, 4000 Morikami Park Road, off Jog Road, Delray Beach. Morikami.org. 561/495-0233

Martin Barnes Lorber Asian art consultant, author, correspondent for the Asian Art Newspaper (London), former Advisor to the Collections at the Morikami and organizer and curator of the 2014 summer exhibition at the Morikami, Japanese Swords and Armor from Florida Private Collections.

Street Art: A tool for increasing biodiversity awareness by Diane Arrieta

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Conservationists often find it difficult to communicate the complexities of the various aspects of biodiversity (i.e., genetic, species, and environmental diversity) and how this web of interdependent ecological interactions affects human well- being. The media generally provide scattered, incomplete, and unbalanced information to the general public, leaving great gaps in knowledge and understanding that can impede a person’s ability to make sound life-decisions. For this thesis work, a street art mural was constructed in a public space (in Boynton, Beach, FL U.S.A.) as a means to test a novel approach for communicating information about biodiversity and raising awareness to a public audience. The aim was to examine public awareness of the term biodiversity, gauge the ability of this particular mural image to convey a complex biodiversity concept, and determine if this mural image could act as an incentive for people to actively seek out new knowledge related to biodiversity.

A self-directed survey was placed online, with a project webpage that included a brief overview of biodiversity and links for resources on more in depth information. A Quick Response Code (QR Code) was placed on the mural to direct traffic to the survey and website. This study used a non-probability convenience sampling approach. Results show that only 20 of 187 (10.8%) of the total respondents understood the entire meaning intended concerning biodiversity and the link to human and animal wellbeing. However, 94 of 187 (50.5%) of the respondents reported they would visit the links provided in order to learn more about biodiversity.

Traveling to WPB for the Arts: Murals, Shipwrecks and A Guy Named Tomata By Sandra Schulman

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