DE PIE ENTRE LAS GRIETAS DE MÚLTIPLES HISTORIAS

STANDING IN THE CRACKS OF MULTIPLE HISTORIES  is a multi-format research project  that seeks to map the ruptures and counter-narratives that exist within the dominant historical narratives of the United States by foregrounding the lived experiences, knowledge, and cultural inheritances of diasporic and Indigenous artists, practitioners, and their communities. Centered around a full-day gathering in San Juan, Puerto Rico, this project seeks to build coalitions across multiple forms of oppression and resistance, inspired by María Lugones’ call for pluralistic, decolonial feminist praxis.

The imperial and genocidal violence of the United States continues today in material and immaterial forms, with bipartisan support and with less than scant opposition from any officially recognised branches of power. This is the reality we are forced to contend with and it is sadly not a new one. However, to say that, the legitimacy of a nation which, for decades, has styled itself as the pioneering and trailblazing expression of all that is good and righteous in our world has eroded, is to woefully understate the truth. The myth of the United States as a benevolent colonial master has revealed itself. Its cultural hegemony and military might, which have been exercised upon the world with equal measure and with shameless co-dependence are now at odds with one another. It would appear to us that today that the cultural legitimacy which they could once claim has suffocated under the weight of their own outsized imperial and militaristic might – under that same weight on the earth, cracks have been formed. 

It is within these cracks, impacted on the soils of lands that have long resisted the overbearing weight of western domination, that we find ourselves. These are the breaks from which our voices emerge – to tell a different story. Stories which stand counter to our very own indoctrination and which by virtue of their very existence undermine the insistences of empire on the proverbial ‘single story’ which Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie warns us of. Our work is the gathering of multiple stories – multiple histories. Puerto Rico, a colonized territory subjected to military occupation, economic extraction, and environmental devastation, serves as both context and catalyst. Here, we ask: What does it mean to listen to the cracks? Through performances, listening sessions, and critical discourse, this invocation program frames San Juan not just as a site, not only as a crack underneath the weight of western domination, but as the unanswered echoes of the empire's hollow core.

This invocation is a convening with artists, thinkers, and communities at the intersection of sonic, corporeal, and intergenerational knowledge. As we gather alongside our partners, artist co-op based in San Juan, Sociedad del Tiempo Libre, we will collectively attempt to open a space to express the shared learnings, dialogues, and new possibilities which have emerged as a result of this project. Over the course of the past two years, we have drawn strength and inspiration from the varied practices of our participating artists, powerful voices of counter-hegemonic expression. Our participating artists include: Awilda Sterling, Cianga Gracia, Alan Pelaez Lopez, Ainslee Alem Robson, Amara Abdal Figueroa, Matana Roberts, and more, alongside Ramón Beltrán and the Sociedad del Tiempo Libre team, hosted by Beta-Local.

The day roots itself within artistic languages from and with the body, inviting expressions that speak beyond and between the English tongue, as we stand in a geography still resisting its colonial weight. We will engage contributions that are carried by performativity, sound, movement, speculative narrative, discourse, and poetics, and invite moments of informal conversation between presentations – creating space for reflection and exchange among the artists, public, and our collaborating teams, accompanied by food, drinks, and shared time together. 

Come be with us!