Contaminados

 Contaminados

#CONTAMINADOS (2017) es una campaña artística en respuesta al abuso que se está y se lleva cometiendo con la comunidad de Peñuelas y los pueblos aledaños, a consecuencia del depósito de cenizas tóxicas. Ha sido un honor capturar a través del lente la tristeza, rabia, impotencia, coraje y dolor de una comunidad que lucha día a día por defender la salud de un pueblo y del ambiente. A la campaña se sumaron mas de 150 personalidades solidarias con la lucha; que más allá de las ideologías político partidistas, dicen #NoMásCenizas.La contaminación procedente de la planta AES, en Guayama, y sus impactos sobre la salud no conocen fronteras. Solo eliminando completamente los residuos de combustión de carbono, residuos radioactivos, podemos evitar enfermedades respiratorias, cáncer, complicaciones en el embarazo y hasta muertes. Nos solidarizamos con el barrio Tallaboa Encarnación de Peñuelas, su lucha es la lucha de Puerto Rico. ¡Seguimos en Resistencia! 
Contaminados se expuso en dos ocasiones en en Puerto Rico como exhibición Individual en la  Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico Recinto Bayamón en febrero de 2017 y en el  Museo de las Americas, Viejo San Juan, Puerto Rico en agosto de 2017

#POLLUTED (2017) is an artistic campaign in response to the abuse that has been and continues to be committed against the community of Peñuelas and neighboring towns, as a result of the dumping of toxic ash. It has been an honor to capture through the lens the sadness, anger, helplessness, courage, and pain of a community that fights daily to defend the health of its people and the environment.

More than 150 individuals joined the campaign in solidarity with the cause — people who, beyond political party ideologies, say #NoMoreAsh.

The pollution coming from the AES plant in Guayama and its health impacts know no borders. Only by completely eliminating carbon combustion residues and radioactive waste can we prevent respiratory illnesses, cancer, pregnancy complications, and even deaths.

We stand in solidarity with the Tallaboa Encarnación neighborhood of Peñuelas — their fight is Puerto Rico’s fight.
We remain in resistance!

Contamidados was installed in two separate solo shows in Puerto Rico: Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Campus on February 2017 and at the Museo de las Americas  at Old San Juan, Puerto Rico on August 2017. 

Museo de las Américas August 2017

    

Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico 

Recinto Bayamón (Feb. 2017)

Prensa/Press

https://www.latimes.com/espanol/noticas-mas/articulo/2016-12-09/efe-3120710-12405439-20161209

https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/notas/marcados-por-las-cenizas/

https://www.80grados.net/contaminados-contra-las-cenizas-de-carbon/

https://www.pressreader.com/puerto-rico/el-nuevo-dia1/20170710/281556585862029?srsltid=AfmBOoooKSmD_6mR7ri3zEpij2gZA7X9jngZlA_zbiMyYpRmUN0VR4RK

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2206582599475375 (conversatorio/talking session)

https://www.primerahora.com/noticias/puerto-rico/notas/lugaro-se-echa-las-cenizas-encima/

https://dialogo.upr.edu/tag/herminio-rodriguez/

https://www.puertoricoartnews.com/2017/06/exposicion-contaminados-del-fotografo.html

https://issuu.com/vocero.com/docs/v01072017/19

https://www.elnuevodia.com/entretenimiento/cultura/notas/artistas-se-banan-con-cenizas-para-unirse-a-la-lucha-en-penuelas/

https://www.80grados.net/contaminado-con-cenizas-garvin-sierra/

Feminism in Puerto Rico

 Feminism in Puerto Rico. A commissioned project on 2020 by the Puerto Rico Contemporary Art Museum to make more than 150 portraits of members of the feminist community in Puerto Rico to create awareness about violence against women. I was humbled accept this opportunity to meet and photographed different pillars of the Feminist Movement in Puerto Rico for 4 days around the island following a particular aesthetic process focused on the face of each participant. Every photos was taken after I asked the following question to all the participants "What's your dream?" I was so proud to be recognized by the museum as a confident source for this important commission.

Airplanes (vulnerability induced)

Airplanes: The Most Common Self-Imposed Human Vulnerability on a Safe way to Travel.

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Vulnerability is a state which one is open to any harm. Under that context Airplanes (most passenger planes) create that state in most of ways.  As a passenger in a plane is in that very last stage of a flight, when the plane is getting closer to its destination, when the cabin pressure change, your ears “hurts” and you have to swallow some saliva to adjust your body with the pressure, we all people meets in the same situation. We experience that sense of anxiety, even though you have done in it so many times, but everybody always doubt about all those time. You wish it will be the same, but, again, you are not sure. Will we make it? From the land perspective, –what if it doesn’t make it? How about it falls on a house or hit an electric wire. Or just the plane falls over us while we drive by the airport. Imagine, that same experience is share by roughly 11,967,120 people per day, which is the average amount of passenger when there are 99,726 flights each day in the world.  Most of everything each of them places themselves into an open space to probably be harm.

There are so many possibilities to feel some human vulnerability when we are concern about planes no matter where you find yourself in relation to them.

Through my photos I want to create that same feeling, or at least think about what we experience in that very same moment in which the airplane is approaching the airport or destination. Don’t matter where you position yourself, inside or outside the plane, you might feel all those feeling at the same time.  Also, I want to portrait the paradox of statistical safety with the physical sense of impending danger. Showing the extreme distance between the safest mode of travel and the most horrific type of accidents found in air travel.

Each photo was taken from less than a mile from the runway. When the photos were taken, all those plane has decrease in speed and altitude more than 30,000 feet in less than 15 minutes, and from 600 mph to 200 mph in the same amount of time, in a 420 ton aircraft.

To flight is the best and safest way to travel and I should continue taking and prefer it anyways despite it carries the worst kind of tragedy. (Most of my best friends are abroad) But that feeling, we all shares, at that same very moment, should stay where all time has been, quietly inside your body. 

HR

"Motel Rooms" (Colonial Comfort) Curated Show, St Croix, V.I. Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts 9/2014

"Motel Rooms" (Colonial Comfort)
Curated Show, Caribbean Museum Center for the Arts, St Croix, V.I., 9/2014 

Artist’s statement:
Among all colonized cultures there is a strange resemblance with sex and politics. The more conservative the culture is, the more sex is taboo. Lust and fetishism are hidden under the skirt of intimacy. The lusty behavior and thoughts are often repressed. In a hidden spot or a secret place or in a certain hour with a certain light there is a precise moment in which those feeling are released. Sometimes sex is good, sometimes it turns violent. Everything depends on how spectacular the environment is. If it looks good and comfortable, if everything is well designed, at least 75% of the conditional approval is reached.

A lot has been written about the use of sex as a weapon or as a way of control in conservative spheres of society in which sex becomes violent. Also, the oppressor assumes violence a price to pay in order to reach some kind of comfort, to experience something new, and reach the expected climax. Usually, that is the rule, and it always ends on depression under the oppression.

In the “Motel Rooms” series, the motel room is as metaphor for a colonized environment. The relationship between “love” and “lust” (the bed and the “Love Machine”) resemble the relationship of a good colony and the empire. In the Caribbean there are great colonies (not going to mention any). Much of them look like paradise. Palm trees and beautiful beaches, great weather, nice people, superb food are a few of the details that persuade us to think, that we have reached 75% of the conditional approval. We are comfortable enough.

But the price we pay for that comfort is represented by the “Love Machine”. Totally awkward and at the same time familiar. Its analytical and obstetric design makes it clear, that you have to work in order to reach pleasure. And the pleasure is not guaranteed, as the lack of practice, courage and experience won’t let you easily reach a climax in such a mechanical environment. But there is no time for practice - the “Love Machine” cannot always be conquered.

You just want to fulfill a desire. But when you think you’re close to your goal, the “Love Machine” turns out to be too uncomfortable. That is when depression arises and oppression begins. Violently, guilt turns into weakness.  A quick end. That sums up, what the remaining 25% of our debate consist of: politics.

At the end we abandon the “Love Machine”, turn to the bed, and dream with geishas and zebras.