A digital projection of an eminent domain NASA Black Hole photograph is projected onto the belly button of a pregnant, brown body. Paralleling the processes of government issued photography and the arresting stigmatization of "Hispanic" people in America, the gravity of Latinx identity, liberation theology and the reconstruction of indigenous cosmologies is offered as a navigational tool for transgressing internalized, structural violence.
Resident Alien is the US government's designation of immigrants who pass a
"substantial presence" test on the path to citizenship. Complicating the government's space race with inhumane immigration policies, the image distorts and reflects our nation's treatment of "anchor babies" and their mixed status families with scintillating distraction. The abstract process the government engages to deflect attention from the black hole of human rights abuses by ICE, highlights its technological capacity for denial.
The Linea Negra series photographs (2008-present) documents the inception of gender, power and race structures from slogans, slang, maxims and "old wives tales" to internalized, institutional violence. The works celebrate the melanin line appearing during gestation (most prominent in women of color) as a biological pieta; the first biographical mark on the procreative body and the first sign of our creative humanity.