I have used palm oil in several works. Palm oil, combined with gunpowder and lemon juice, was poured over slaves to cover bruises and marks before they were sold. There is an interesting layering that happens here with palm oil as a commodity but also the enslaved as a commodity. Previously, in a performance, I covered my body with palm oil. The obvious next step was to create casts in an attempt to merge these two. While walking in Richmond, Virginia , I started picking up bricks to use as a base to place my casts. Part of my research led me to the history of the brick in the US, where slaves would harvest clay from the James River to make bricks. Based on the research I decided to create a monument, where the casts would lay on top of another to impart the sense of a pile of bodies. Eventually, these palm oil body casts melt and disappear. The large cube/base made of 1000-1400 bricks is the only thing that would remain, giving the sense of a removed monument.

The following weeks after the performance, I proceeded to go back to the site of the performance to collect bricks. I would collect 10 - 15 bricks at a time to place them back to the locations that I took them from. Due to the palm, gunpowder and lemon juice that melted on them, the bricks would stained with this mixture. This act would reinforce the removal of my action and my temporary monument. I consider these stained bricks that are embedded on the sidewalks of the city of Richmond as small invisible memorials. The markers in the map above are a few locations where bricks were placed back.

The Impossibility

Disruption reflects on those characteristics of the contemporary era, which would reach their maximum exponent from March 2020, with the crisis generated by COVID19.

In this way, it speaks of the loneliness experienced in the quarantine months, of how isolation hinders interaction with the environment, despite having it in front of him, generating a disruption between the environment and the subject. In this sense, the environment is not simply a setting in which the subjects develop, but in many aspects the environment participates in the construction of the identity of its subjects. Clothing, as well as other aesthetic factors, would reflect in a certain way this interaction between medium and subject that results in the conformation of different identities, for that reason, nudity would draw that lack of participation of the environment in the life of the subject.

But isolation has not only meant a disruption with respect to the physical environment, sociability has also been affected by quarantines and safety distance, both at a micro level, with the people who make up our daily social network, and in a sense macro, referring to the power elites that pull the strings.

The ways of exercising have been, throughout history, as diverse as they are constant, from the imperial trajectories to the power repertoires of the current nation-states, different rulers have sought and executed multiple maneuvers that allowed them to exercise control over the ruled masses. Thus, following the idea of the shock doctrine of Naomi Klein, we can find how moments of crisis, such as the one we are currently experiencing, have been used in favor of these forms of execution of power and control mechanisms, taking advantage of the strong impact that these they would suppose in the psychology of the society to force the approval of measures that, in other contexts, would be unpopular.

The states of alarm, applied in extreme and prolonged ways, have meant that decision-making remains in the hands of a very small part of the population. If, for 50 years, the forms of government have been moving further and further away from the democratic spirit of the mid-twentieth century, in this last year the few crumbs of what would be a real democracy have ended up being exhausted.

In this context, economic absolutism has found its place for a last push, stronger and with worse consequences. The hyper-reality of which Baudrillard spoke has become more evident than ever, the mass media have substituted face-to-face conversation for a long period of time, favoring the abstract of communicative dynamics to rise to its maximum exponent, feeding the illusion that technology could be a safeguard for real sociability and feeding the simulation of the contemporary world in which the priority would be the representation and not the represented. In Baudrillard's hyperreal world, these repertoires of power would include the creation of the abstract models to which practical reality adapts, in the same way that for Carrier and Miller's virtualism, the elites who exercise control order social reality starting from theoretical ideas, this would cause a weariness, a disruption between the level of the high elites that configure the norms of our social life and those who move on the experimental level and assume the consequences.


Disruption

OYA-9394 (in progress)
 I am continually thinking about a space where I can live without my body being in a constant state of threat. Sun Ra, like many other Afrofuturists, mentions space as being the place where Black people must go in order to escape systems of oppression and violence. As I continue to reflect on Afrofuturism and alternative futures, what keeps coming to mind is the development of space(s) that are inclusive, the destruction or restructuring of capitalism, and the decolonization and unlearning of many beliefs that have brought us to where we are today. Many times, I have tried to imagine what the world would look like without capitalism… and even  today I have difficulty envisioning what that might be. Writer and cultural theorist Mark Fisher calls this Capitalism Realism, which is "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it."  As I look at my past and my present I cannot think about utopian futures.

The OYA- 9394 suit makes me hyper-visible. When I am without it, I adopt ways of surviving and blending in. I constantly question the way I dress, the way I speak, and the words that come out of my mouth. Focusing on the idea of a dystopian future, I consider the OYA suit a type of armor, a protective suit made with materials that I can find--made with the technology available on earth. I do not have the means to leave Earth but others do. I think about space exploration as something that is meant to benefit mostly White folks--people with wealth, and power. But the day they depart Earth there will not be much left for me here. I will need to develop further methods of survival.

The prototype is assembled from 3 chemical-resistant overalls, an acrylic dome as a helmet, and a waterproof backpack. In the second prototype, I use shock survival blankets and ac aluminum tape to create the overalls. In this version, I cover my helmet to conceal my identity with a black veil. I recently walked the Slave Trail in Richmond dressed in the OYA-9394 suit, and I made offerings along my path.

OYA-9394 (in progress)

Performance By Raquel Vasquez La Roche and Luis Vasquez La Roche. 

My sister and I walk through sugar cane fields in Trinidad and Tobago that were harvested by the British to produce sugar, but that were previously cotton plantations under the Spanish crown. These fields remember all the free labour by my enslaved ancestors.  

We are both dressed in our protective suits like we just arrived on these lands from the future. We walk and  dig through the soil and lift up our childhood basketball hoop. There is a play between the word cancha  in spanish and its translation to english. Cancha in Spanish exclusively means court  in English, but it could also be translated to the word field. I am interested in the  range of opportunities that black families have. What does it mean to work in a cotton or sugar cane field in the past, and what does it mean to be an athlete or an entertainer in the present? I was one of those black kids that only saw themselves represented in media through sports and music. What are the parallels between these?

"Despues de 20 años"

"No, son 20"

Canchas de Algodon de Azuar

But the real ones, just like you, just like me, is the 1st part of 3 performances, which take place in a sugar cane field in Couva, Trinidad. In the performance, I “clean” a sugar cast of an Air Jordan 1’s. I scrub with a brush and rub with my hands until the shoe dissolves. As it melts, certain parts shoe get sharper, and it cuts my hands as I try to “rub it clean”. No longer the shoe gets “cleaned” with just a brush and water but is also being “cleaned” with blood.

Not too far away from where the performance took place, there is housing developments, schools and recreational spaces. There is an abandoned sugar factory called Brechin Castle, which has been closed and empty since 2003. Nearby, there is also a school and a golf course. There is sugar cane, houses, a cricket/soccer field and a basketball court. What does it mean for some of these areas to become housing developments, soccer fields, or recreation areas?

I layer the AJ1’s and sugar to reference different periods of exploitation and profiteering off of Black people. Trinidad was a Spanish colony from the late 1400s to the early 1800s, when we became a British Colony. “The crop one found here was not sugar, but cotton”1. Enslaved Africans and indentured workers of Indian descent worked in these sugar plantations. In 1937, these sugar estates eventually became Caroni Ltd (Brechin Castle). The sugar industry in Trinidad finally collapsed in the early 2000s.

The branding behind Air Jordans and Michael Jordan was one of the few representations of successful Black men for me while growing up in Venezuela. On the other hand, it also became a synonym of being a Mono2 or Macaco3. In other countries like Chile, they would use the word Flaite4, which derives from the counterfeit version called Flight Air. The AJ1’s is such an iconic item within Black culture —utilising the success of Black athletes as a marketing strategy to sell it to its primary consumer, the black community.

With this performance, I try to establish a link between the material and the object and the new ways in which capitalism has managed to exploit Black folks.

I stand in this cane field where my enslaved ancestors were forced to work the land, with this counterfeit version of AJ1’s, giving the sugar back to the soil. Making it disappear, but it costs me my blood.


But the real ones just like you just like me

Béton Brut

As a society we are in an era where we have gone from analog to digital. As a graphic designer I have always been attracted to analog media but due to the influence of the digital age in which we live my practice had to migrate to digital media is there where certain visual elements attract my attention such as neon color gradient bars that are used as visual resources on web pages design, apps design among other practices related to digital design. My intention to take those neon color gradient bars out from digital devices and turn them into something tangible through analog medium such as painting and make them last over time as what lives in the digital world quickly loses relevance.

Levels

This short film explicitly presents the peak of the Corona Virus Pandemic featuring empty streets, public plazas, and trains. It makes the viewer reflect on the issues of a society that were already present before the Pandemic but were only amplified by it. Loneliness, depression, and social pressure.

The subtitle "alles ist anders" ("everything's different") symbolizes the society's sudden awareness of those problems and the shift of the general mood. The short film was made in March as a school project.

Lockdown ("Alles ist anders")

The Covid-19 pandemic changed society entirely. A complete social and economic lockdown has lead to millions of people stuck in their homes in solitude. Workplaces, malls, train stations are usually locations of human interaction and sometimes chaos. On their own, without their normal daytime routine, people began to rethink their life and question the status quo. With little social contact, society started noticing the smaller things, distancing themselves from a lifestyle with high social pressure. "Petrichor" is a term that describes the scent of stone or concrete after a rainfall. This short film tries to convey the atmosphere of a changed world, where economic pressure is replaced by nature. 

Petrichor

Bright Magazine - Magazine for Streetwear, Sneakers and Skateboarding

Issue 05 Summer 2011

Article about the status quo of the Urban Art world.

BRIGHT MAGAZINE

An  interdisciplinary research on the phenomenon of graffiti in a collection of essays. Including a practical workshop in collab. with the Bauhaus LAB Weimar.

Luis Müller Philipp-Sohn: "Graffiti und Street Art. Der Versuch einer Differenzierung am Beispiel einer kunsthistorischen Perspektive auf Shepard Faireys Obey-Kampagne."

ISBN: 978-3-8260-4700-8
Erscheinungsjahr: 2011
Seitenanzahl: 140

WAS IST GRAFFITI?

Spring/Summer 2011 @ Soho House Berlin/Hamburg

The Urban Artist is a travelling exhibition presenting a selection of progressive urban art from all over Europe and the US, exhibited in St. Pauli/ Hamburg from June, 9th-14th, 2011. This concept has been exposed at Soho House Berlin in early 2011 to more than 20.000 visitors. The team of the Urban Artist is happy to pop up in Hamburg now. Unveiling a very special location and brand new art works from:
 JAYBO MONK/ Berlin - AARON ROSE/ Los Angeles - CHRISTIAN AWE/ Berlin - STOHEAD/ Berlin - ANTON UNAI/ Barcelona - XOOOOX/ Berlin - STEFAN STRUMBEL/ Offenburg - KELSEY BROOKES/ San Diego (Cali) - MARCO ”PhO“ GRASSI/ Milano - MARCEL WALLDORF/ Dresden - VARIOUS & GOULD/ Berlin - HELLE MARDAHL/ Kopenhagen - JONATHAN YEO/ London - KEVIN EARL TAYLOR/ San Francisco - KATRIN FRIDRIKS/ Paris

THE URBAN ARTIST - paths from subcultural creativity to contemporary art

Studies: Art History, Archeology, Cultural Studies

2009 - Finished Magister Artium with 1,2. 

Thesis in Art History about "Street Art". (1,0)

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