About the artist:
Three
years ago, I parted with a comfortable and enjoyable American lifestyle
to seek adventure and exposure to other cultures. I'd earned a Master's Degree in
Social Work with a specialty in Social Circus, a means of healing and
opening awareness through play and performance, and I gravitated to
Latin America to offer this practice. I departed as a young woman with
a consciousness formed largely by mainstream American experience but
prodded by an innate curiousity and a humanitarian impulse. A year and a
half later, I returned personally, politically, and spiritually
transformed.
While
I'd looked forward to arriving at a heightened understanding of the
ways of Latin America, I was taken by how little the culture resembled
mainstream American media portrayals of the land as corrupt and
crime-ridden, and I was shaken by the hostility with which so many Latin
Americans regard America. Comments from Latin Americans like, "Thank
you for helping me see that all Americans are not racist" and "You must
accept that America is an imperialist nation" stunned me, and punctuated
a quieter distrust that I felt challenged to continually overcome
across my travels.
The stress of this experience, however, was balanced by the many inspiring
connections I experienced with Latin Americans and the affirmation of my faith
in the basic goodness and sameness of humanity. I returned to the US
identifying myself, for the first time, as distinctly American,
understanding that qualities such as my directness, relative ease at
developing and expressing opinions, creativity, and adventurous spirit are gifts given to me by my family, socioeconomic status, and nation of origin. I
also returned with discomforting questions about the ways that the
United States interacts with the rest of the world and with a deep drive
to discover my own responsibility in shaping that interaction.
Now,
after spending another year and a half inhabiting the States with this
widened lens, exploring the history, politics, arts, and communities of my own nation, I find myself drawn back to Latin America,
again with Social Circus as a tool, and with a deliberate
determination to delve more deeply into inter-cultural dialogue and
investigation.
