Sunday, April 18, 2004

The New World Border

"Standing on the map of my political desires I toast to a borderless future. The work of the artist is to force open the matrix of reality to introduce unsuspected possibilities...I wish to propose a third alternative: the hybrid - a cultural, political, aesthetic, and sexual hybrid. My version of the hybrid is cross-racial, polylinguistic, and multicontextual. From a disadvantaged position, the hybrid expropriates elements from all sides to create more open and fluid systems. The artist who practices hybridity can be at the same time an insider and an outsider, and expert in border crossings, a temporary member of multiple communities, a citizen of two or more nations. S/he performs multiple roles in multiple contexts. At times s/he can operate as a media pirate, assume the role of nomadic chronicler, intercultural translator, or political trickster. S/he speaks from more than one perspective, to more than one community, about more than one reality. His/her job is to trespass, bridge, interconnect, reinterpret, remap, and redefine; to find the outer limits of his/her culture and cross them.... "
- from Guillermo Gomez-Pena, THE NEW WORLD BORDER

No comments: