contact study (2010). Brown shellac ink on Goldline Watercolour Studio paper 9.5 x 12.5 inches

draw two circles that touch at a single 

point with a pencil on a sheet of paper 

fill one circle with water

fill one circle with ink

ink touches water

neither circle will be the same

contact study (2014) Vinyl text, water, ink, watercolour paper, brushes, pencil, circle template, plastic containers,readymade table and chair; dimensions variable. Installation image courtesy of the Doris McCarthy Gallery. 

Exhibition History:
There and Back Again, Doris McCarthy Gallery, University of Toronto Scarborough, 2014.
*Sections of this work are held in private collections.

 

spatial profiling...  (2011-17). Performance, site-specific drawing; Photograph by Manolo Lugo.

face

    touches

wall

repeatedly

        outline

    profile

movement

        through

    space

results

    abstract

pattern

spatial profiling… is a durational performance and site-specific drawing project. The action consists of a continuous tracing of the outline of my profile as I move along the contours of a given space. The piece originated as a formal exercise in the studio that opened up ways to explore the relationship between time and space through the body, as well as racial politics and the tropes of identity-based art. The iterations of the project in Vancouver (2011) and Toronto (2013), and Regina (2014) were inspired by and borrowed its colour palette from Margaret Dragu’s Eine Kleine Nacht Radio (1999).  Drawn directly on the wall, the trace of the action forms a pattern that indicates the passing of the outermost edges of the body, through a process that pushes past the boundaries of the identifiable. Although mostly performed as a solo action over a prolonged period of time, a recent version of the piece included the audience as co-performers.

Exhibition History:

spatial profiling...  (2014). Performance, site-specific drawing; performed at Satellite Gallery, Vancouver. Photographs by Caitlin Carr.

spatial profiling – after Margaret Dragu’s Eine Kleine Nacht Radio  (2014). Performance, site-specific drawing; performed at Neutral Ground for Performatorium - Festival of Queer Performance, Regina. Photograph by Jason Cawood. 

spatial profiling...  (2013). Performance, site-specific drawing; performed at TeaK, University of the Arts, Helsinki.

spatial profiling – after Margaret Dragu’s Eine Kleine Nacht Radio  (2011). Performance, site-specific drawing; performed at VIVO Media Arts Centre for the LIVE Biennial of Performance Art, Vancouver. Photographs by Jesse Birch and Francisco-Fernando Granados.

Publications:

‘spatial profiling (After Margaret Dragu’s Eine Kleine Nacht Radio),’ PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, volume 36, number 2, The MIT Press, Cambridge: May 2014, pp. 58-61.

RG 74-13, Transfer 1987-00624. Video installation and single channel video in collaboration with Cressida Kocienski; 10.00 min.

RG 74-13… uses the language of the Archives of Ontario to trace the construction of the linguistic figure of the migrant in the Canadian imaginary.

Exhibition History:
CENTRE, Trinity Square Video, Toronto, 2014.

apostrophe (2012). Rectified readymade, postcard and corrector.

apostrophe presents a meditation on national belonging and the possibility of an aesthetic education. The project stages an impossible correspondence between myself, a Guatemalan refugee claimant cum Canadian citizen, and an unnamed Egyptian-Canadian man my age imprisoned as an enemy combatant in Guantanamo at the age of fifteen.

he was born in Canada the year after I was born in Guatemala

he was captured and taken to Guantanamo the year after I came to Canada

he was charged with war crimes the year after I received refugee status

he was convicted on those charges the year after I became a citizen

The name of the man, although well known due to international media attention, is withheld from the project for ethical reasons. His image is not used or reproduced as part of the artwork.

apostrophe (2012); photographs by Manolo Lugo.

The project consists of a series of assisted readymade texts and a 24-hour performance at the University of Toronto Art Centre on the occasion of my Masters of Visual Studies thesis exhibition. Actions included counting the 3,438 days of his imprisonment with graphite hatch marks on the gallery wall, reading from texts given to him as part of his prison education and writing an as-of-yet unsent letter to him. The apostrophe finds its etymological origin in the Greek word apóstrophos, meaning eliding, or turning away.  As a rhetorical devise, the apostrophe marks the moment when an actor turns from the audience as a means to address a character absent in the scene, or an abstraction. 

Vimeo link to documentation: http://vimeo.com/58737035 - videography by Cressida Kocienski.

I have only ever been a lover in English (2010-11). Performance, site specific drawing; photograph by Henry Chan.

press tongue against the wall

salivate

move slowly across the space
the tongue draws a line

I have only ever been a lover in English
30 minutes
Performed as part of Revisiting Ephemera at the University of Western Ontario's ArtLab Gallery
January 10, 2011

I press my tongue against the wall

I salivate

I move slowly across the space

My tongue draws a line

Images by Dave Kemp.

contact study (2010). Performance for Everything Everyday at the Vancouver Art Gallery; a series of live, hour-long architectural interventions, vaseline, gold leaf; photographs by Rachel Topham 

the contours of the face press 
against the contours of the architecture 
for one hour. rock en español marks time; 
vaseline marks the shape of contact;
gold leaf marks the trace.

with glowing hearts (2009). Performance intervention on the corner of College and Ossington, Toronto; photograph by Tara McMullen.

dream act - after Antonio Ruiz 'El Sueño de la Malinche' (2009). Private intervention, gold leaf on pillow. 

a young Latino man sleeps on a gilded pillow for one night. 

the window under the table (2009). Performed for My Mother Worked in a Factory at Emily Carr University, Vancouver; Performance, rectified readymades, gold leaf, breath; photograph and video by Nathalie Lozano.

use nose and breath to write a message on a gold-leafed surface approximately the size of tombstone.