Date started: February, 2010
Idea: El cafÈ como espacio creativo
Definition: Cafe, CafÈ, CaffË a coffee house, a small restaurant selling coffee and sometimes other drinks or snack with a facility to consume them on the premises.
A project about finding commonalities, with the collaboration of Rafael Landron and Jose Palomino
Project description: This project is based on cafe culture and aesthetics of interaction. Coffee houses are spaces were everything is possible, from socializing, talks, writing, planning,organizing,and exhibiting, everything can happen there. The coffee house, as creative space, and the intention to relate gave birth to this series of events, visuals and writings.
Around February 2010, we started meeting after work in a small coffee house, El Dulce Despertar, located across the Audubon Terrace in New York. The small restaurant sold coffee and pastries with tables to consume them. They also informally exhibited some artworks by local artist. In that setting, drinking coffee, we started having casual conversations where we got to know each other. The images and text were created based on the exploration of the experience of connectiveness.
The text documents the process and ideas that emerged through out the three months we met in the coffee house. It also gathers pertinent information and preoccupations. One of the main concerns of this work regards how people identify and develop commonalities and a language of relating to each other. The imagery developed in the form of photographs, drawings and events.
We had two shooting days. One in the coffee house, that has since then closed down, and a second one in the Audubon Terrace. The day of the second photographic event we looked and enacted the drawings against a monumental wall of one of the buildings in the terrace. We read the text: 'Going away, coming closer' and took frontal photographs of the poses.
The visuals and text are still in progress.
Process:
Conversations
Text
For a few weeks we met in a coffeehouse after work. We had coffee, pastries and we talked about many things. The most important moment is when you identify common threads. Commonalities are important because every object, every image, every word means something different to each person. We must find points of reference as soon as possible. Lack of points of references will inhibit communication. Misunderstood images and words create separation. He talked about native americans, fastings, and sweat lounges. I thought about Arawaks, natural life styles and hammam. We have to search for common threads. We must find points of connection. We must find the places we have inhabited in different times: a city, a language, a moment that link us together. I was in barcelona. What were you doing in Barcelona? In Barcelona the place, the memory, the image, the moment, or the idea of the European city Did you walk the streets? Were you performing in Las Ramblas? No. I was in La Havana. What were you doing in La Havana, the Caribbean city? A belief in social change, a new social order. What did you do as a child? Reading science fiction, playing guitar, learning creativity, my father thaught me. Many times we had different points of reference. What do you do in your spare time? Run, bike, hike. Do we like the same music? When he talked about folk music I will think about Nueva trova. What experiences make an artist? Are you a poet? A performer? A dancer? An interest in body movement. The body is always present. I was unfamiliar with the names, the music, the books. Creativity was the unifier. Were you ever in the island? Which island? The floating island. I was there, in the island. I was also here, in the city. Can we talk about identity in the island and the modern city? Yes, we can. Is it too much of a sensitive issue? It will be fine. Is it the tension between the island and the continent the major obstacle? Accepting the continuities between the island and the continent. Is it language? Language as identifier or barrier. The ability to be silent together. Gravitating among those who share similar experiences. Confused identities, misunderstandings. Your affirmations, my negations. Complex race and class divides. Lack of points of reference. The writers I do not read. The music I do not listen. Rejection and assimilation. The island that continues. The imaginary and liquid identity of the island and the city.
Drawings, text
Shooting day: Friday April 16, 2010 @ Audubon Terrace 12:40 pm Colors: burgundy/ gray against white wall Look at the drawings Enact the drawings against a monumental wall Sequence: Going away, coming closer Take frontal photographs We took pictures and the camera fell through the grate
Work with photographs and text
E-mail to collaborators and ask for feedback and contributions
NO responses from collaborators
Document and organize
SOund piece with new collaborator: Daniel Montoya Readinds of El Dulce Despertar, two voices overlapping. Two dialogues out of tempo.
Sound piece presented as a piece in progress in group exhibition: SEE WHAT I MEAN Exhibition Dates: December 3 ñ January 15, 2011 Opening: Friday, December 3, 2010 6-9pm Curated by Marcos Dimas and Christine Licata
Taller Boricua presents ìSee What I Mean,î a group exhibition featuring: Anibal Arroyo, Nicky Enright, Sandra MarÌa Esteves, Nicholas Fraser, Caridad De La Luz "La Bruja," Soraya Marcano, Joetta Maue, Elsa MarÌa MelÈndez, Jesus Papoleto MelÈndez, Antonio ìTitaniumî Montalvo, Christian ìXIANî Montalvo, Urayo·n Noel, Ronny Quevedo, David Quiles, Wilson Ramos Jr., Oliver Rios, Karen Shaw and Seldon Yuan.
Bringing together visual artists and Nuyorican poets, the exhibition explores the elastic nature of verbal and visual language. Relationships between how we see and the way we describe the world around us are malleable and intrinsically connected. Within this discourse, the ongoing contributions and legacy of the Nuyorican poets offer important insight. (Re)inventors of the vernacular, they continually encompass other art mediums and expand the boundaries between that which is seen, said and experienced in culture.
Together with visual artists whose work also exists in a realm between expression and perception, the exhibition provokes an expansive dialogue on familiar socio-political realities and constructs of everyday life such as: identity, economics, interpersonal relationships, public media and government practices. Incorporating multimedia installations drawing, collage, found objects as well as digital and traditional printmaking, ìSee What I Meanî offers a look beyond the surface of words and images to reveal deeper understandings.
Taller Boricua Galleries 1680 Lexington Avenue, NYC, N.Y. 10029
- The Photographer Cristian I. PeÒa document the interaction with the sound piece and the audience in the gallery.
12.Blog:
In attempting to capture the divide between people and places, the coffee house became a metaphor of the ambivalent relationship between the neighbourhood and the terrace, the institution and its audience, and the islander and the metropolis.
In the complex relationship between art, space and people, the terrace is a contested space, one with gates, walls and boundaries, creating a separation between culture and people.
(Dislocation) people are not any longer in communion with the environment. The link between people and location must be (re)imagined.
13.El Dulce Despertar is incomplete: The risk of objectification of the subject was disturbing. If by sharing the images of Dulce Despertar, they will acquire an object-like character, then they should be deliberately destroyed.
Framework I:
- Choose a partner
- Go to a cafe and have a drink together
- Talk
- Take brief notes
- Come back to your notes after a few days, weeks, or months
- Develop ideas, type, and edit
- Publish in the internet
- Document the process
Biographical Notes: Soraya Marcano (b. P.R.) is a visual artist living and working in New York. Her mixed media artwork has been exhibited internationally and it is represented in public and private collections. Her work, which includes painting, collage, sculpture, writing, and digital work, provides a layered exploration of mobility and the convoluted nature of islanders.
Date started: February, 2010
Idea: El cafÈ como espacio creativo
Definition: Cafe, CafÈ, CaffË a coffee house, a small restaurant selling coffee and sometimes other drinks or snack with a facility to consume them on the premises.
A project about finding commonalities, with the collaboration of Rafael Landron and Jose Palomino
Project description: This project is based on cafe culture and aesthetics of interaction. Coffee houses are spaces were everything is possible, from socializing, talks, writing, planning,organizing,and exhibiting, everything can happen there. The coffee house, as creative space, and the intention to relate gave birth to this series of events, visuals and writings.
Around February 2010, we started meeting after work in a small coffee house, El Dulce Despertar, located across the Audubon Terrace in New York. The small restaurant sold coffee and pastries with tables to consume them. They also informally exhibited some artworks by local artist. In that setting, drinking coffee, we started having casual conversations where we got to know each other. The images and text were created based on the exploration of the experience of connectiveness.
The text documents the process and ideas that emerged through out the three months we met in the coffee house. It also gathers pertinent information and preoccupations. One of the main concerns of this work regards how people identify and develop commonalities and a language of relating to each other. The imagery developed in the form of photographs, drawings and events.
We had two shooting days. One in the coffee house, that has since then closed down, and a second one in the Audubon Terrace. The day of the second photographic event we looked and enacted the drawings against a monumental wall of one of the buildings in the terrace. We read the text: 'Going away, coming closer' and took frontal photographs of the poses.
The visuals and text are still in progress.
Process:
Conversations
Text
For a few weeks we met in a coffeehouse after work. We had coffee, pastries and we talked about many things. The most important moment is when you identify common threads. Commonalities are important because every object, every image, every word means something different to each person. We must find points of reference as soon as possible. Lack of points of references will inhibit communication. Misunderstood images and words create separation. He talked about native americans, fastings, and sweat lounges. I thought about Arawaks, natural life styles and hammam. We have to search for common threads. We must find points of connection. We must find the places we have inhabited in different times: a city, a language, a moment that link us together. I was in barcelona. What were you doing in Barcelona? In Barcelona the place, the memory, the image, the moment, or the idea of the European city Did you walk the streets? Were you performing in Las Ramblas? No. I was in La Havana. What were you doing in La Havana, the Caribbean city? A belief in social change, a new social order. What did you do as a child? Reading science fiction, playing guitar, learning creativity, my father thaught me. Many times we had different points of reference. What do you do in your spare time? Run, bike, hike. Do we like the same music? When he talked about folk music I will think about Nueva trova. What experiences make an artist? Are you a poet? A performer? A dancer? An interest in body movement. The body is always present. I was unfamiliar with the names, the music, the books. Creativity was the unifier. Were you ever in the island? Which island? The floating island. I was there, in the island. I was also here, in the city. Can we talk about identity in the island and the modern city? Yes, we can. Is it too much of a sensitive issue? It will be fine. Is it the tension between the island and the continent the major obstacle? Accepting the continuities between the island and the continent. Is it language? Language as identifier or barrier. The ability to be silent together. Gravitating among those who share similar experiences. Confused identities, misunderstandings. Your affirmations, my negations. Complex race and class divides. Lack of points of reference. The writers I do not read. The music I do not listen. Rejection and assimilation. The island that continues. The imaginary and liquid identity of the island and the city.
Drawings, text
Shooting day: Friday April 16, 2010 @ Audubon Terrace 12:40 pm Colors: burgundy/ gray against white wall Look at the drawings Enact the drawings against a monumental wall Sequence: Going away, coming closer Take frontal photographs We took pictures and the camera fell through the grate
Work with photographs and text
E-mail to collaborators and ask for feedback and contributions
NO responses from collaborators
Document and organize
SOund piece with new collaborator: Daniel Montoya Readinds of El Dulce Despertar, two voices overlapping. Two dialogues out of tempo.
Sound piece presented as a piece in progress in group exhibition: SEE WHAT I MEAN Exhibition Dates: December 3 ñ January 15, 2011 Opening: Friday, December 3, 2010 6-9pm Curated by Marcos Dimas and Christine Licata
Taller Boricua presents ìSee What I Mean,î a group exhibition featuring: Anibal Arroyo, Nicky Enright, Sandra MarÌa Esteves, Nicholas Fraser, Caridad De La Luz "La Bruja," Soraya Marcano, Joetta Maue, Elsa MarÌa MelÈndez, Jesus Papoleto MelÈndez, Antonio ìTitaniumî Montalvo, Christian ìXIANî Montalvo, Urayo·n Noel, Ronny Quevedo, David Quiles, Wilson Ramos Jr., Oliver Rios, Karen Shaw and Seldon Yuan.
Bringing together visual artists and Nuyorican poets, the exhibition explores the elastic nature of verbal and visual language. Relationships between how we see and the way we describe the world around us are malleable and intrinsically connected. Within this discourse, the ongoing contributions and legacy of the Nuyorican poets offer important insight. (Re)inventors of the vernacular, they continually encompass other art mediums and expand the boundaries between that which is seen, said and experienced in culture.
Together with visual artists whose work also exists in a realm between expression and perception, the exhibition provokes an expansive dialogue on familiar socio-political realities and constructs of everyday life such as: identity, economics, interpersonal relationships, public media and government practices. Incorporating multimedia installations drawing, collage, found objects as well as digital and traditional printmaking, ìSee What I Meanî offers a look beyond the surface of words and images to reveal deeper understandings.
Taller Boricua Galleries 1680 Lexington Avenue, NYC, N.Y. 10029
- The Photographer Cristian I. PeÒa document the interaction with the sound piece and the audience in the gallery.
12.Blog:
In attempting to capture the divide between people and places, the coffee house became a metaphor of the ambivalent relationship between the neighbourhood and the terrace, the institution and its audience, and the islander and the metropolis.
In the complex relationship between art, space and people, the terrace is a contested space, one with gates, walls and boundaries, creating a separation between culture and people.
(Dislocation) people are not any longer in communion with the environment. The link between people and location must be (re)imagined.
13.El Dulce Despertar is incomplete: The risk of objectification of the subject was disturbing. If by sharing the images of Dulce Despertar, they will acquire an object-like character, then they should be deliberately destroyed.
Framework I:
- Choose a partner
- Go to a cafe and have a drink together
- Talk
- Take brief notes
- Come back to your notes after a few days, weeks, or months
- Develop ideas, type, and edit
- Publish in the internet
- Document the process
Biographical Notes: Soraya Marcano (b. P.R.) is a visual artist living and working in New York. Her mixed media artwork has been exhibited internationally and it is represented in public and private collections. Her work, which includes painting, collage, sculpture, writing, and digital work, provides a layered exploration of mobility and the convoluted nature of islanders.