Foreign Bodies

S(k)IN installation is a diptych inspired by Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How it Feels to Be Colored.” Society creates circumstance for your skin or race to be the passport for opportunity or failure. As in the case of immigration policy and how it has changed in the past few years, where Latinos can be stopped and checked just by their appearance to see if they are documented. I created a wall in which people can know what it is to be thrown against a “sharp black wall” instead of white. The Arrastre stills play into the same martyrdom of skin. In this case, thousands of young women, that were virgins, were tied with rocks and thrown into beautiful cenotes in the Yucatan Peninsula, as offerings to gods. They were never allowed to come of age. I paid homage to them by going into a sink hole with a white stallion and trying to ride it, as a way to change the history of that site, as a way to come of age.