This exhibition travels along the delta of the Río Bravo/Río Grande river telling both fictional and real stories of womxn* that live or were born there. Guided by the writings of Gloria Anzaldúa, self-described as chicana dyke-feminist, tejana patlache poet, writer, and cultural theorist, and her description of the river as a body, the artist Paloma Ayala reflects on the landscape of the delta of the Río Bravo/Río Grande river, understood as a collective ecology of agency, processes, histories and fictions connected to it, with a special focus on feminist voices, natural events and the relationship of the artist with her own family, whose members act as source of research, producers, and facilitators of movement in the region.
Onion Island is an imaginary place where all sorts of encounters happen. It is a fertile fictional alternative to narrate the space of the delta and to explore a solidaire relationship with rurality, water bodies, and biota. In the fanzine Letters from Onion Island, it states:
“That Onion Island in the middle of the river, is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition.”
The zine fictionalizes, Gloria Anzaldúa as a guide and as a lover, it mixes up her writings with the artist’s to create an imaginary letter exchange. In the same way, this exhibition wishes to navigate that “emotional residue of an unnatural boundary”, peeling the layers of onion, creating spaces for listening and for conversation, from the perspective of a Mexican mujer de frontera.
Furthermore, the exhibition asks how these, and other poetic, feminist, and cultural agencies could lead to create platforms of knowledge in favor of the ecologies of the river delta. How could a practice of decolonization of the dominating narrative of violence of the border, create new accesses to the river, both physically and in the collective or personal imaginaries?
Paloma Ayala (1980, MX/CH) is original of Matamoros, Mexico. Half of her family lives in Brownsville, Texas, its border “sister city”, directly across the river. She is interested in the relationship between domestic and political contexts. She often introduces fictional narratives as means of social critique, presented in the form of publications, videos, conversations, drawings and installations directed to different sorts of public, including people outside of ordinary cultural spaces.
PROGRAM:
1. November 7 pm
Exhibition Opening
8. November, 7 pm
Karaoke Reading Session
Sang poetry and reading of Letters from Onion Island. With Rosario Hernández
15. November, 7.30 pm
Screening und Artist Talk with the filmmaker Dolissa Medina
Screening program:
Grounds , (11 min., 2000)
A Lineage of Kind Men, (4 min., 2004)
The Moon Song of Assassination, (7 minutes, 2010)
Small Town, Turn Away , (feature-length documentary, work-in-progress excerpts)
23. November, 14 bis 18 Uhr
Transescultura, mit der Künstlerin Isabel Guerrero
Exhibition opening hours:
Friday 3 - 7 pm, Saturday 2 - 6 pm
Sa, 2. November
Fr, 8. & Sa, 9. November
Fr, 15. & Sa,16. November
Fr, 22. & Sa, 23. November
The exhibition is supported by the Edith Maryon Foundation and the Verein Frauenzentrum Zürich.
