2022/MFA THESIS
Finding Comfort in The Crisis
"The start of this show is BABY ISA, no questions asked it’s the vessel I use to express myself and find comfort when making work that is so loaded with questions and unknowns. It is the most precious part of my identity, and it is the most beautiful. I was a GORGEOUS baby, and my toddler years were cute as can be. My childhood was pure and fun. I needed the love of my childhood to make this work, I needed to remember that BABY ISA was glowing, she was a tropical glow baby day in and day out. "
below you will find the collection of text that are the grounding aspects of my thesis exploration. below are links to the two installations that are in motion and were created out of this collection of writings
collection of text/takeaways
my freckles & the *sun*:
Learning to love the sun is a special experienceYou don’t expect it to touch you so deeply, but itdoes. It sinks into your skin, and you get to watchyour skin change with every kiss the sun gives youIt will take a while till you learn to live every day forthe sunlight. I was in my twenties, one of the worstweeks of my life when I saw my sun kissed freckles.I was obsessed with them; I’d never had them before. I spent the next few years cultivating mybaby freckles. I was obsessed. Then one daysomeone told me “You know your freckles comefrom the white man in you” I stopped in my tracks.I stood there feeling colonizer blood in my veinsand I wanted to cry because the thing I had learned to love about my body came from whiteness, a thought so obscure to me. I didn’t talkabout my freckles for a while after that. I thought about them though, so many nights just having more questions than ever before. I told someoneabout my insecurities with my freckles that had developed, and they told me that it is a sign that my ancestors fought and survived. I have more Indigenous traits about my body than euro. My freckles only come out when the sun kisses them because my skin was made for sun. Even thoughthey might be a colonizer’s mark left behind on my body, they are mine now. Remember baby girl, you loved your freckles before you knew.
only one photo is not enough:
I dreamed up Colombia in my head a mystical far away land. I know howthe sand of Brazil feels like. I have noidea what it is like to not fall in love with every new place I see. I found greenhouses and museums in every city I have travelled to with other andby myself, I know planes so well. I didnot have the luxury of family just a short drive away. Everyone is far, planes trains and automobiles away. I have been in snow to sand to newlanguages and ones that are learnedby talking to family. There is not onephotographed that explains me bestthat is the intersectionality of it all.A ticket here, a couple days there dowhatever it takes to see the ones youlove. I went on over ten planes in thelast two years nothing was direct.
thoughts of a tropical glow baby:
I think a lot about rewriting history, switching everything and I think about what I would wantto see from this world. I think I would work to be surrounded by colour and plants and be in gratitude for the lush of our world. I’ve spent somuch time in green houses in the warmth andthinking about how we build these structures that brought there to here. That for a few moments I don’t have to be talking about therewhile being here. I was standing in my sanctuary.tropical glow bay is the sanctuary of spending the day in a greenhouse. It’s remembering all the colour and vibrance of South America. It’s aplace to hold on to my identity of being a glowbaby who need to the sun to feel comfortable intheir body. And the tropical reminder that darling, I’m not from here. There’s a movie thatprobably no one that I know outside of my family has seen, Tainá: Uma Aventura na Amazônia. That is who I thought I was, I thoughtI was TAINA and some days I still do. She is thestrongest and boldest girl of the Amazônia (amazon forest). She is the reason I hold on to the tropical glow baby in me. She made me feel likeI could do anything in this world, black hair melanin filled skin and all.
a reason for patterns:
I carry so much with me as a child of the Colombian adoption diaspora. The past wenever met, the weight of the new and thelonging for acceptance of who we are. I think about how much I carry all the time. For someone to try understanding me they need to commit the time. They need to sit downand listen to all my intersectionality and see pastthe simple. It is complicated being a child of thediaspora. It means we feel deeply, we feel the pain of all those who have been displaced whocrave the connection of the motherland but know that when you go back it will not feel likehome. It will feel like the past, a place you havenothing to put a spiritual connection to. I thinkdeeply almost every day about the 14 days I spent in Colombia, how much colder the placewas compared to what I had dreamed up in myhead. I did not speak the language, but they sawme as the person that once was. They saw me as a Colombian girl with roots to the land, but they stepped back when they realized I did notspeak the language. They asked how, does notmake sense. I told them I was adopted, I left before I ever knew what I was leaving.
Welcome!
Are you confused yet? Did you stumble on something you are want to know more about? Does this journey of jumping to one page to the next stress your mind? maybe you think this project is having an identity crisis... well I won't go on for too long because I believe there is still so much yet to discover. This project and world you are entering is one of a tropical glow baby. It is meant to be a well documented sanctuary of sorts. This project is one I have been working on for about a year. The merging of my identity and the crisis that it is. I have been in an identity crisis for I would say at least 10 years. As an adoptee I have learned that a crisis was inevitable, I have learned that it is part of the circle of my lived experience. This project is an exploration of how one finds moments of comfort while acknowledging that this is in fact lived experience. I have learned from all these moments of crisis about myself, my culture and society. I have learned to truly consider the grain of salt in every moment. So enjoy the ride and handle with care.