Giuseppi

English classes/film/publication

Gasworks, London, UK

2022-2023

For my 8 month Residency at Gasworks, I created a learning space in which ‘1st and 2nd’ generation migrants from ‘Latin-America’ living in Lambeth and Southwark, interacted politically and socially through the actions of learning and teaching. Through a series of free English classes, the teachers, students and I engaged in creative writing exercises together. The writings were then discussed collectively and built upon to develop an environment or 'landscape' informed by the student’s joint descriptive texts on ‘home,’ initiated by the teachers through their teaching. This, in relation to the teachers' own spatial and emotional imagery of the diasporic universes in which they are ethnically/culturally rooted as 2nd generation immigrants. These lead us to a dialogue and set of activities that frames our experience in these classes within the context of a film, an online publication and the performative gesture of ‘world-building’ through intimacy.

There were 24 sessions in total, 3 different tutors for 6 sessions each.

Considering the different ways 2nd generation ‘Latinx’ people view their identity as opposed to a ‘newcomer,’ my hopes was to probe the uncertain space between the romance of memory and the romanticizing of a place one has not been to–the ‘other’ place; in this case, shaped by geographical mediated distance. Here, I question how this ‘other’ place exists materially through language, age, fantasy and lived-experience.

This work ties into my personal research and interests, where I am looking into the ‘Latinx’ community as a relatively ‘new’ and 'undefined' migrant group in London and the UK. Over the past years, I have been reflecting on and archiving the ways in which these groups contribute to London/UK's diasporic collective identity.

Supported by the Participation Residency at Gasworks.

Link to online publication here

Installation

2022

Des Bains, London, UK

Cardboard, pastel, LED lights, table, chairs, white neon light, turquoise wall paint, audio, timber, framed drawings.

‘Chela's: Esa vez que perreamos y todos nos vieron’ is an installation and an ode to my grandmother, Chela (or Graciela), who in the 70’s and 80’s was a prominent figure in my hometown of Callao’s working-class culture of Salsa (in Lima, Peru); as a party goer, organiser and resource. The installation makes reference to clubs and domestic party spaces in which diverse leisure activities informed and reflected the context’s complex economic politics of pleasure and entertainment.These were/are mirrors into a landscape of love, fun and capitalism in Lima’s ‘Caribbean.’

In the work, Salsa is a motif that is linked to a broader sphere of Afro-diasporic music and class systems, such as Hip-hop and Reggaeton–particularly ‘Perreo’ as ‘the sound’ and language of Black and brown working-class youth. Here, Perreo and Salsa live in the past, present and future simultaneously, as they are in constant ‘time-travel’ and migration partially through the practice of ‘sampling,’ an approach I often use with different mediums in my own artistic process; and a tool that quite directly connects its intergenerational audience.

Operating transnationally, in nature and through globalisation, these genres, which in a sense are ‘biologically’ tied, produce a very intersectional demographic; made up of varying ages and identifications within the expansive spectrum of a transient, political ‘third-world,’ globally. In the context of London, specifically, I’m thinking of the ways diverse ‘third-world’ dancing bodies respond to each other’s movements/behaviour and gaze within different generational, but collective understandings of displacement and placement. More so, I’m looking into how these understandings play a role in the construction of their (our) age identities, in relation to a western interpretation and ‘practical’ divide between kids, adolescents and adults present in the UK.

Through this ‘time-less, space in which Perreo and Salsa exists as actively peering, I am interested in probing the crossings of the autobiographical, it’s ‘dance’ between joy/desire, and cultural notions and boundaries of ‘childhood’ and ‘adultness,’ in the complicated paradigm of intergenerational partying.

For our opening party, we collaborated with Movimientos who brought together Bushbby and Santiago Morales Aka Alma De Selva.

Sets by Bushbby:

https://soundcloud.com/platform/system-mix-080-bushbby

https://soundcloud.com/djbushbby/afrotronic-w-bushbby

Tracks by Santiago Morales Aka Alma De Selva:

https://almadelaselva66.bandcamp.com/releases

Photos: Gullies Adamson

Catalogue Entry/Exhibition by Paz Monge

Curated by Maria Valeria Biondo.

Video Installation

2022

62 min 52 Sec

PEER Gallery, London, UK

HD video and blue velvet curtain.

For ‘Aquí Tú No Existes,’ I gathered a group of London based performers from both music and theatre backgrounds, to engage in conversation inside an empty Hoxton Hall, imagining the final stretch of an after-party kiki.

In the past year, I’ve been really interested in the ways pedagogical practices can be shaped through intimacy and narratives. I’m thinking of conversation as knowledge sharing and tradition, specifically through the lens of the performer (and performing); who operate within a space and constant tension between invisibility and hyper-visibility.

As a child I entered many ‘adult’ conversations (sometimes in and off the adults’ sight), inside an intergenerational context, often led by Black and indigenous women—inside ‘cantinas,’ bars or house family parties. I became in tune with the language of these spaces, which partially molded my ‘childhood’ and ‘adulthood’ in a way that have made these 2 stages in my life more so actively adjacent (always), than separate; reframing time for me in non-linear ways. Living in all times, at all times.

Beyond this, the work is also looking at the precarious relationship between the observer and the observee, in the ‘theater’ and ‘play’ of talking and listening as practices in the cultivating of relationships, and an audience.

Performers: Toñi Madja, Raquel Arraes, Luly Perez, and Luz Elena Caicedo.

Supported by PEER Gallery and Acme.

Installation

2022

Cell Project Space, London, UK

35mm Photography, vinyl, timber, metal rails, acrylic paint, plexiglass, found objects (doors, chair, broom, dustpan, pink curtain, dinosaur tropics bed sheet), recycled clothes (previously owned by artist), plants, plant holders, LED lights, Light fixtures, headphones and audio (original song).

In Ópera de Balcón , two balconies in a dimly lit space sing to each other from across the room. The song, written by Rodriguez Cambana, is a ballad hinged upon complications in romance, timing, and distance. Viewers are invited to decode intimate and covert messages shared between structures (in Morse Code) to uncover an opera coloured by militarised modes of communication, personal entanglements, and the political framings of migration and diaspora.

This exhibition is a continuation of Rodriguez Cambana’s inquiry into the spectrum of Black and indigenous communities, their formation, and fictions. His practice has strived to complicate notions of ‘community.’ Critiquing imaginaries of purity, Rodriguez Cambana negotiates difference, its contradictions and shifting landscapes.

Ópera de Balcón mirrors the physical spaces that act as intimate communicators between communities within the surreal experience of migration, likening it to a mystical-play and performative gesture in which surroundings are in constant transition. The exhibition considers the balcony as a witness, sniper post, and archive, all the while its messaging is subversive and coded as it plays out the theatre of romance.

Through his own lived experience, Rodriguez Cambana reflects on and engages with a (his) community: one that he knows as irrational, contradictory, and poor. Hoping to shatter illusions of equality, Ópera de Balcón brings in the material realities of class, operating through the intersections of the ‘public’ and ‘private.’

Text co-written by Arianna Mercado, curator of Ópera de Balcón.

4 channel film and video installation

2021

London, UK

Digitized Super 8, HD video, white soundproof curtains, LED lights, studio speakers, clear A4 wall mount, ivory silk textured paper A4 print outs (lyrics).

For this work, I hired and directed 5 UK based actresses, throughout the course of 3 consecutive days, in character development practices where we rehearsed the Rap song 'Me and my Girlfriend' by the music artist Tupac Shakur; and in doing so, impersonating the essence of Tupac as a faceted character. These were documented, to culminate in a 4-channel installation in which the 4 channels frequently and rhythmically respond to each other; synchronized.

Each day comprised memorization tasks aimed at learning the song's lyrics, movement routines, voice and acting exercises---and discussions or debates about Tupac's personal/political history; his intentions with the song and work in general, as well as a range of present race and gender dichotomies. From these moments, I composed a narrative.

In working with this particular song, my interest is to convey a specific energy, pertaining to love and rage as emotions rooted in a Black radical tradition. I see this particular track 'Me and My Girlfriend', as a revolutionary love song, which describes a love inherently revolutionary as it is played out under oppressive circumstances/violence. More so, the song subliminally alludes to Tupac's love for his gun, contextualizing the weapon as his 'girlfriend/lover' and claiming weaponizing and loving (oneself and others) as non-mutually-exclusive practices; linking this type of resistance with the factors that may attribute to the true romance of Black militancy and love. Love being the preferred outcome of this Black flight.

We (the performers and I) examined the 'theater' Tupac as an artist embodied and navigated, which highly demanded the characteristics and dramatization of the 'Gangsta Rapper,' as an evidently hip-hop/music industry commodity; made up of racialized tropes of Black men as emotionally untamed that ultimately benefited/s a capitalist white agenda. This caused an effect that measured 'the performance of the performance,' per say, as we also accounted for the mystic interpretation of Tupac's death, and his presumed, alleged 'afterlife'; the infamous 'machiavellian' gesture.

I mean to pose questions about the way we (Black and indigenous people) love and the emotional/physical/cosmic landscapes we love, on. In considering the history of resistance and pain in a Black life experience, I pay attention to my personal attachment to Tupac which extends to his actual name being an homage to the indigenous revolutionary Tupac Amaru who died for Peru's independence from Spain in early European occupation. Furthermore, this points to a driving force behind the work, that observes Tupac's connection with the Black Panther Party, in which his mother Afeny Shakur, amongst other Black militant women such as Assata Shakur, organized for Black liberation in the United States; evidently shaping Tupac's identity politically.

Performers: Kami Gakuru, Denise Oji Meghan Adjei, Millie George and Tillyah Canoville.

Exhibited as part of the MFA 2021 Degree Show at Goldsmiths University.

35mm Photography

2021

London, UK

Series of photographs commissioned as part of Metal’s ‘In Other Words’ publication, curated by Kate Marsh, Harold Offeh and Xavier de Sousa.

https://metalculture.bigcartel.com/product/in-other-words-2

Sound description of works: https://soundcloud.com/user-766789208/page-14-peterpan-bryan?in=user-766789208/sets/in-other-words-2-audio-description

35mm Photography/video

2022

In ‘Sabados de Tragedia en Costa Azul,’ I’m thinking about the nightlife spaces I often visit in London, predominantly inhabited by working-class migrants. I was more inclined to partially document the immersive transitions many of these spaces undergo, such as the transformation between daytime hospitality (a restaurant environment) to a more party chaotic atmospheric vibe (chaos), as well as the narratives, the drama (the tragedy), and the dynamics that are expressed here, innately, in the fabric of participatory song and dance.

Commissioned by New Contemporaries Digital Fellowship

Immersive video installation/Club

London, UK

2019-2020

Acrylic paint, mural, box tv, wall mount, wooden chair, wooden table, San Miguel glass beer bottle, Cajon, 3D print, tarp, LED lights, mini Disco ball, framed family portrait, collages, and digital prints.

“La Maldad/Baby Room Salsa Club,” also designed as an installation, is a party, social and performance space. Installed in my art studio and highly personalized, it is made up of a framed family portrait featuring my grandmother amongst all her sisters and one male cousin circa 1945, an Afro-Peruvian percussion instrument “El Cajon” which supports a 3D model of the club’s exterior and 2 digital collages depicting 2 children looking/spying into the club through parallel suggested windows; their backgrounds portray the coastal landscape in Callao, Peru--Lima’s first port-town where I was born and raised.

In addition, a looped-video plays of Black men I met in bars and casted, performing exaggerated dysphoric expressions while their faces superimpose one another continuously creating amorphous characteristics.

“La Maldad" or “the evil,” is a title derivative of a mythological entity present in the tradition of oral-storytelling, synonymous of a corrupted youth in Callao; and representative of the narratives I may want to explore in this particular fictional context.

The club itself partially references "Queirolo," a notable bar/restaurant in metropolitan Lima, recognized as a predecessor in the very “third-world” tradition of “hole-in-the-wall” establishments, for its aesthetic and general ambience, which may appear small and unvarnished/unfiltered. It is famous for hosting literary Peruvian icons/artists such as César Vallejo and Victoria Santa Cruz, and historically popular amongst the city’s lone-drifter and bar-fly singing men. It is a site of infectious melancholia, as men here self-indulge in a shared, performative sadness and Black pessimism; hyper-aware of each other’s actions and despair.

In this theater of sadness, we can expect to hear the songs of Ismael Rivera, Ivan Cruz and Chavela Vargas, Afro-Indigenous musicians who lyrically materialize self-destruction, guilt, redemption and remorse, accompanying these sad listeners, circulating as authors in these complex tragic plots; perhaps even mapping a history of emotions carried by, particularly, the Black body.

For them, these dramatic displays of grief may be portals into understanding and coping with a larger framework of generational trauma, mental illness and displacement; questioning what it means to be heartbroken as an already perceived “broken entities.”

Performance

Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico, D.F.

2019

Through a combination of popular apps like Tinder and Grindr, and general scouting, young-looking men of my height (or close to it) were invited and hired to participate in a dance choreography (collectively created in approximately 3 days) to Jerry Rivera’s salsa song “Cara de Niño.” The result was a marriage between a classical composition and a more improvisational, “street” variation of the music genre’s movement language.

Performed as part of the Hemispheric Institute’s Encuentro 2019: The World Inside Out: Humor, Noise and Performance

Installation/Sculpture

Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY

2017-2019

Waiting for the session to begin, depicts observational drawings of sleeping correctional officers and incarcerated youth in Rikers Island. The title refers to my time as an educator working on a hip hop project inside the prison over 2 years (2017-2019). During this tenure, I noticed both correctional officers and youth operating in a contagious trance like state or completely asleep in what seemed like a stress induced coma. Here, I explore the surreal experience of sleeping under a shared toxic circumstance, in which these individuals, regardless of their different roles, may cosmically engage with each other--perhaps in a common desire to escape the confines of the prison or more broadly the punitive system which defines American criminal justice. 

Looking at the emotional and physical confines in which we, as Black and Indigenous bodies must often learn to sleep/rest and think, I am also exploring the weaponising of our abilities to put ourselves to sleep in stressful situations through this forced/ policed type of meditation; allowing our minds to secretly build worlds/plot while we potentially fake disassociation—chilling in precarious positions with our eyes closed, ready for anything and never truly asleep.

The suggestive hypnotic effect of the various vinyls in motion is reflective of the lucid space in which these rotating images of resting bodies find themselves. The vinyls in this case, are recorders and producers of history, silence, and patterns.

These weekly sessions at Rikers consisted of conversations about the evolution and universal iconography of contemporary hip hop and included “smuggling” music requested by the youth. Some of their favorite titles included Tego Calderon’s Pa’Que Retozen, Tony’s Story by Meek Mill and Rikers Island by Troy Ave. The youth allowed these voices to advise them, in what regularly became a sonic ritual or listening party. The word session itself is commonly associated in hip hop recording and performance, also refers to moments of clinical examination in medicine or therapy. These sessions with participants generally resulted in a hybrid between searching for a therapeutic encounter and a (musical) catalogue of youth autonomy---a so-called teen “coming of age” narrative in the context of captivity, or in the case of Riker Island, waiting (to be sentenced). 

Exhibited as part of the More Art Public Art Grant.

Video/sculpture/3D models of artist

2018

In "Afternoon Party For Traitors" I am interested in the possible definitions and/or perceptions behind the identity of a “traitor.” More so, what it means to self-identify as a “traitor” and be socialized or socialize as one. With this, also exploring the vocabulary we as people (Black, poor, and immigrant, male presenting), may use to understand the core essence of the self through the necessary and painful, disorientating process of "self-accountability."

Video/Performance

Gardiner, NY 2017

For this piece, I visited a group of Great Dane breeders who allowed me to pick a few dogs from a community of 129 to lead me throughout a vast field; negotiating our similarities and differences in height and strength. 

All in relation to my use of growth hormones as a teenager and its muddy outcomes. 

Exhibited as part of the 2021-2022 Bloomberg’s New Contemporaries.

Video/Installation/Performance

Brooklyn, NY 2017

For Horror Film Monologue//Two Angry People Arguing at Night I invited and hired my 10 year old upstairs neighbor Chris Carter, to memorize and recite an original monologue (written as a confessional) in the backyard of our apartment building only accessible through the first floor. In this "attempt to get the lines right," we build a dynamic and exchange of voices alluding to the actor's language of "what is your motivation?” Through this playful gesture and haunting nature of being possessed by words, the act illuminates the complex tragedy of guilt and redemption.

Exhibited as part of Artist Alliance Inc. Studio Residency at Cuchifritos Gallery and Project space.
 

Performance/Installation/Party

Ayampe, Ecuador 2017

Documentation from a party organized for the mothers of Ayampe, Ecuador. As part of this event, mothers were personally invited to come for a free day of massage, manicures, art-making, drinks, childcare, and a photo booth-all included as stations within the home of one of the moms;inside a newly built/"unfinished" portion of the house.

Project executed as part of TrueQué Residencia Artística.

Many thanks to:

Loreto Muñoz Vallejo, Randy Reyes, Adriana Monsalve, Rastro, Stefa Marin Alarcon, Joaquín Henríquez, Sofía Reeser del Rio, Jennifer Birmania Bello, Alexa Schaeffer Quintero, Gabriela Espinosa Hormazábal, and Stephano Espinoza Galarza. 

Photo credit: Stephano Espinoza Galarza, Adriana Monsalve, and Stefa Marin Alarcon.

Marker Drawing on paper.

2017

Super 8 Film/Performance 

Callao, Peru

2011-2018 

La Mar Brava trilogy, shot entirely on color super 8, is a set of 20-25 minute films taking a hybrid (documentary and fiction) approach to the lives of a group of people living in Callao, Peru. Callao is an afro-centric port city which served as a trade and exchange quarter of enslaved African bodies during early european occupation. La Mar Brava is the name of the beach/portion of the ocean located near one of the most marginalized sectors in Callao; making the name La Mar Brava or "Rough Sea" resonate with its heavy influx of narcotics via its port, the community of consumers who live on the actual beach, and the strong, unwelcoming and cold/strong tides of the water.

All three films cast members of my immediate and extended family as protagonists, who participate in developing situations stemming from actualities and fictional dilemmas reminiscent of what they/we find cinematic in novelas and hollywood action movies.

Performance/Sculpture featuring Vanessa Tavera.

Miami, Florida 2016

My sixteen year old sister counts $800 repeatedly;these $800 being a combination of my Honorarium, payment for my sister as a participant, and our head curator’s money I asked to use as a prop.

Site-specific installation/Sculpture

Chicago, IL 2016

Depiction of "mainstream New York Hip-hop" as a guest in Chicago.

Performance/Installation/Sculpture + Collages

Port-au-Prince, Haiti,

2015 

Informing the basis of this project is Jermaine Dupri's career, as a mainstream radio hip-hop producer in the late nineties and early two-thousands, which catapulted the stardom of several North American tween (10-12 year old) rappers including Lil Bow Wow and Kris Kross.

Jermaine Dupri Playlist assembles five tween (10 to 12 year old) rappers for the formation of a hip-­hop/hip­-pop troupe in preparation for a one time performance/concert; performed in a small bedroom. Posing the question: what if tween rappers were born out of stolen gold spilled around the "Americas" and throughout the African diaspora?

Sorting through footage some of the audience members captured during the live performance of Jermaine Dupri Playlist, I found a kid recording the performance with a prop camera made out of an empty black gas gallon. The additional Collages are moments that allude to that recording/or the question "what would this imaginary/multi-dimensional footage  look like?"

http://clocktower.org/radio/player/series/12890/item/43

Project executed as part of The Ghetto Biennale.

Installation/Toddler T-shirt 

Boston, MA-New York, NY

2015

Depicting climaxes in the history of southern hip-hop/hip-pop melodrama, Birth of a Nation is a garment featuring Lil Wayne and Birdman (an image taken from a 2012 news coverage). A different iteration of the T-shirt was then given to hip-hop artist Ms. Boogie (formally known as Jay Boogie) for her performance of the track Body Remix at Up and Down nightclub.

https://vimeo.com/142258550

Performance

New York, NY 2014

Video/Performance/Soap opera/Installation; BFA Senior Thesis

Boston, MA 2014-2015

Episode from the soap opera "Commencement" featuring the previous president of The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Christopher Bratton and my mother, Ingrid Cambana.

A small radio/speaker placed beneath the video/monitor played a recording of my mother reading a few of her many emails to Chris Bratton, where she repeatedly asks for financial help.

Installation/Print/Performance/Soap opera/collage; BFA Senior Thesis

Boston,MA 2014-215

Episode from the soap opera "Commencement."

Mural/Installation/Wish Machine

Lawrence, MA 2014

Stereo in installation plays R&B instrumentals. Wishes can be recorded. 

Performance/Sculpture

Queens, New York 2015

 For All the things I'm doing with my Cash Money/Young Money jacket, I wore a 90's Reebok jacket I caught at a Young Money concert when a hype-man threw it at the audience.

Performance 

Montréal, Canada 2013

Ongoing performance. 

Second iteration of live performance, responding to a diluted acoustic cover of Chief Keef’s rap song “Love Sosa.”

Video/Performance

Boston, MA 2013

Performance/Photography 

Lima, Peru & Mexico D.F. 2011-ongoing 

The series LOVEYOUANDIHATEYOUCUSIAINTYOU documents sporadic interactions/poses/communication between visible representatives of authority (of color) and myself in different contexts throughout the global south.

Drawing on notebook paper/documentation

2016

Memory of hurricane Wilma in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Video/Performance/Fashion Film

Boston, MA 2015

Sci-fi thriller placing as its protagonist one of the hundreds of vests made by mother, in her many unsuccessful/successful entrepreneur attempts, depicting my sister’s face at the age of 10. Here the vest grants access to a specific membership valued greatly by its alternate context/universe and the characters wearing it.

Photography/performance 

2012 Lima, Peru

Collaboration with Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz.

For this series, Izquierdo and I documented white mannequins (or mannequins which clearly displayed white features) dressed in indigenous clothing installed in public markets around Lima. These images were later turned into postcards which we sent to look a likes of the given mannequin.

Performance +Collaboration with Ximena Izquierdo Ugaz

Lima, Peru 2011

Live Performance on rooftop of art residency Zona30 in El Centro Historico de Lima. Izquierdo and I communicate through site specific cyphers tied to our experiences as expatriates/emigrants of Peru.

Performance/Text/Letter/Documentation

2014

Performance/Video featuring Jennifer

Boston, MA 2014

For this, I hired a middle aged white woman from Backpage/Craigslist and instructed her to participate in a scene where she responds to me as I perform an "ethnic" version of Barbie's Ken in silence.