The Imminent Arrival
Federico Cuatlacuatl
Tiemperos del Antropoceno
Existing simultaneously in two places and dimensions of time, immigrants embody a transborder life, navigating the past, present, and future at once. To (be)long is to reclaim territory, and in Tiemperos del Antropoceno, a transcendence of time and space becomes a means to reclaim a new dimension of territory that must exist in between two worlds--between the past and the future, between two identities, between one’s many selves. The carnival regalia depicted in Tiemperos del Antropoceno represent a tradition smuggled into the U.S after 2010 by undocumented immigrant communities from Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. The artist notes, “Traditions of smuggling are acts of resiliency, self-preservation, resistance, and self- rematriation within a transborder indigeneity--to be an alien; to be the other; to be the threat; to be the dream; to be the backbone; to be the invasion; to be a cultural nomad… to be hope.”
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