This work was made with support from the New Wave Art Wknd Artist-in-Residence Program in West Palm Beach, Florida.
MAR BRAVO
In the journey crossing seas and other geographies, travelers take objects, products, and even knowledge to be traded and exchanged along the way. These transactions play an essential role in nations’ development since culture has been built based on fusion and symbolically represents the union of two or more cultural systems. And not from a colonial Eurocentric perspective that Europe came to America bringing progress, but rather that different worlds intertwine in the process of the encounter. From this connection, a new vision is born, a rebirth. The idea of a new world is not stable, but rather it is like the sea in constant motion, flowing through its currents and tides, sometimes calm and sometimes rough. These dynamics make the sea a symbolic factor of change since its greatness and imposing character is an incentive to cross it, searching for the unknown shore that always exists.
The sea is more than a geographical space. It is a metaphor for future innovations, what came from there, what took from here, what never came, and what was built layer by layer, solidifying cultural identities and, above all, their resulting forms that are part of the people’s collective memory because contributions construct diversity. This statement is a political act that seeks a parallel conversation, changing the institutional model between entities of power and underserved populations that have been silenced, displaced, and limited their representation to just being an exotic product. America (the continent) results from encounters and contributions that coexist in its inhabitants’ physical and mental spaces. The chain of relationships linking the unknown with what is familiar is the engine of evolution in all aspects of human and social development. Separating history between past and present disagrees with the lines of continuity that have always been traced. And if there is confrontation, it has to have something positive, since it is not about imposing ideas, but about presenting them at the table, as a great potluck of possibilities, where everyone contributes. Everyone can access, mix, and try new flavors at this table, achieving the fusion that comes from unity. That is why we are grateful to the great Brave Sea, which people cross, carrying their entire lives, beliefs, and above all, the hope of reaching the other coast, which is a world of equal opportunities for all.