Week 8 !Printing the Revolution! From Black and Brown Solidarity to Afro-Latinidad (Favianna Rodriguez)

 

Migration is Beautiful 
Favianna Rodriguez

I was not able to attend the "!Printing the Revolution! Virtual Conversation Series: From Black and Brown Solidarity to Afro-Latinidad" due to work conflicts luckily a generous classmate uploaded most of the talk in the form of a voice memo on the groupme page. I was very grateful for this but I wish I could have seen a recorded version. The accessibility of events is something to consider for assignments in the future.

That being said I very much enjoyed the talk. The participants include Malaquias Montoya, Moses Ros-Suárez and Favianna Rodriguez. I especially liked Favianna Rodriguez's talk. She discussed growing up in Oakland Ca. during the war on drugs. Her family is from Peru and her father is Afro-Peruvian. Black and Brown communities were drastically shaped by the war on drug narrative that was created. She saw police brutality, gangs, pollution and the neglect of her, among other communities. However, she also saw how these communities responded with culture such as the birth of hip hop. This helped her realize that the stories that we tell ourselves shape politics and reality and grounded in her the belief that her art could help share/ project a different story. She was inspired by posters she saw and artists like Emory Douglas. Based off this inspiration she started making works on paper. In 2012 a poster at the Democratic National Convention. The poster was a form of protest against Obama's record breaking deportation record. She wanted to make work about the world and her "yeses" rather than focusing on "nos." Meaning she aimed to envision a future and world we want as opposed to the work she was making when she first started, which was about what she didn't want. The Migration is Beautiful work features a butterfly and is meant to elicit the idea that migration is beautiful just like nature, all living things move. Challenging the colonial idea that the artificial lines made by the Government are going to stop the movement of people or animals. The two faces represent how people move for love of each other or love of themselves. Rodriguez is an environmentalist; she is vocal about the climate crisis disproportionately affect ingBlack and Brown communities. Her work moves towards a different world view and aims to de-colonizing ways of thinking, reconnect humans to nature and fight the fossil fuel industry. She also mentions that her feminism is influenced by Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldúa. Growing up being told as a female to not have sex, look at anyone, or get pregnant really affected her. Having a platform now she openly talks about the abortions she has had in an effort to change the conversation. Feeling and confronting what the patriarchy has done to us is also represented in some of her work. She discusses feeling with the whole body, sexual liberation and sexual joy. Her work currently includes the mediums of wood block linoleum block, digitally combo of analog and digital and she is currently working on a large scale sculptural print.