Joiri Minaya’s Pattern Making

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In the multidisciplinary practice of artist Joiri Minaya, the histories, realities, and fantasies of the Dominican Republic and the wider Caribbean are explored, exposed, and subverted as Minaya seeks to control her own representation and visibility. “I’m interested in the idea of opacity,” says Minaya. “A right to remain opaque, even to yourself, even things that you may not understand about yourself, and being at peace with that and not having to explain yourself to others.” In her collages, photographs, performances, and installations, Minaya uses pattern, camouflage, and opacity as a “tool for liberation” from outside judgment. In her photo series and performances of Containers (2015-2020), the artist recreates poses—arms akimbo, lying in odalisque—she found repeated in Google image search results for “Dominican women.” Performers wear patterned, restrictive bodysuits made from spandex that encase the wearer from head to toe. 

Spandex also covers several monuments of colonizers in the series The Cloaking (2020), where Minaya created her own textiles featuring repeats of plants that played important roles to Native and Afro-diasporic peoples in the Americas. “I’m thinking of a way to re-signify the public space used to commemorate colonial history, and instead trying to commemorate the people who resisted colonialism,” Minaya explains. A dense visual layering of the Dominican Republic’s landscapes, her New York studio, and the artist’s vibrant works, this short documentary film follows Minaya as she challenges the ways that the cultures of the Caribbean have been represented and makes space for the stories that remain untold.

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