RECLAIMED, REIMAGINED
by Luis Vasquez

Canchas de Algodon de Azucar is a video performance collaboration between my sister, Raquel Vasquez La Roche, and me. This video work was part of the exhibition “Reclaimed, Reimagined”. In the video, we walk through sugar cane fields in Trinidad. These fields were harvested by the British to produce sugar, but under the Spanish crown, they were cotton plantations. After the collapse of the sugar industry, these spaces have slowly been transformed into cricket fields, basketball courts, running tracks or golf courses. This work is interested in the violent memory of these spaces that have been converted into areas of sports and leisure.

The sugar cane field is located in Couva close to the old sugar factory Brechin Castle. In this performative gesture, we walk and dig through the soil and raise our childhood basketball hoop in the middle of a cane field while dressed in our OYA suit of armor. This basketball hoop has been with us since we were kids. There is an interesting relationship between how the forced labor enslaved Africans were used to harvest these fields and how capitalism has found new ways to exploit Black and brown communities in the present. In the performance, I use a basketball hoop to point towards that idea of dreaming of being an athlete as a way of getting out of poverty and the problems that are tied to it.

The protective suits are named after the Yoruba goddess OYA, who is goddess of the wind. It is also a continuation of a previous performance called OYA-9394, where I walked the Richmond Slave Trail in Virginia dressed in the OYA suit. The protective suit is made from mylar shock blankets, a protective helmet, cricket gloves, and basketball shoes. 

The work found in the exhibition Reclaimed, Reimagined speaks to the urgent issues unfolding today. Civil rights are challenged by an uncertain political future. Women’s rights and those of the LGBTQIA community are threatened. Despite all of these challenges, the battle to recognize that Black lives truly matter continues. Many artists in this exhibition remind us of the need to reclaim one’s position in the socio-political landscape. Concurrently the pandemic has forced us to reimagine both our interior and exterior relationships to space and how to navigate environments in new ways.

Many of the artists in Reclaimed, Reimagined use the body as a tool for demonstrating power, history and beauty while others reimagine bodies as a platform for political discourse and as a space where identity structures are redefined. Other artists look at the spaces they inhabit— drawing from elements of building construction like blueprints, raw materials and diagrams. Utilizing abstraction and symbolism, these artists explore issues such as equity and immigration, while others develop dream-like environments—brand new spaces we may escape to in order to find solace from this current tumultuous time.

Reclaimed, Reimagined  was curated by
David Rios Ferreira.

Artist in the show:

Kelly Chuning,Maya Ciarrocchi, Vanezza Cruz, Francisco Donoso, Alexis Duque, Fei Li, Maria Liebana, Dionis Ortiz, Deja Patterson, Brad Silk, Jill Slaymaker, Joey Solomon, Luis Vasquez La Roche.

The exhibition opened on Thurs, Nov. 12

until December 12, 2020.