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A Thesis Statement by Erica Enriquez

 

The word peel suggests a removal - an intermediary, protective sheet, or covering, that is able to contain or reveal what lies beneath. A layer, skin, or mask, to be discarded, though essential to the processes of both growth and repair. 

 

What happens when the disposable - that which is designed to operate in service to another - is instead preserved and cared for? Yes, memorialized in honor and gratitude for its service, its relationship with the outside, but also purely for what it is. Its materiality. Its origins. The memory of it, Your memory of it, and potential for what it could be: Remember that time when your friend did that thing with it, that you THINK was a lie, but it doesn’t matter because now when you see that thing, all you can think about is your friend? The complete imaginary. The utterly tangible. Exactly what lies before you, and this, and that, and everything else - - -

 

In two years the banana peel has become a guiding symbol and material in my practice. A holder of dense political and cultural history, the personal, the global, a surrogate and reference of migratory struggle, cultural assimilation, but also resilience, and humor. A driving force in my practice is my consideration for joy as a tactic of political resistance. I ruminate over the universality of this feeling, the biological need for it, and the radical power that it holds. Not just in the punch line, but in the sting. The aftertaste. The timbre of the words spoken and the writing.

 

And there she goes! The clown, she slips on the banana peel, but like rubber stretches and springs back up and laughs with you. A resilience, an immortality, a symbol but also a real life human person. The clown - a selfless being, for your enjoyment, a face shielded, but rather, a portal to enter into. Who is in there? Who could it be? 

 

I have learned to develop a wholistic and spiritual practice, that does not discriminate mediums or processes. I have learned to embrace a practice that relinquishes a hierarchy of maker and object, and instead trusts making as a process of collaboration. I consider the reciprocity between material and myself, and the autonomy that materials have even without my presence. I treat all material gestures as living, allowing the boundaries of art and artifact to be leaky. I have found that working iteratively allows for the liberation and multiplicity of materials and expression of identity. In previous works, this phenomenon appears in the form of props that become films, or films that yield sculptures, phrases that become songs, and generational stories that calcify into clothing.

 

In two years I have learned to maintain a practice of performance. Performance as a relationship to the living, but the living beyond the biological: breathing, growing, shitting, fucking, metabolizing, moving, and responding. Rather, inclusive of memory as material, its replica, stories of memories that are passed down, and copied again, around and beyond its physicality - the immaterial, the dream within me and outside of me. To me - everything ever made was once imaginary, and made into belief. In these two years i’ve learned to believe. And for as long as I do, I know that I am an artist. Thanks for helping me.