Intervention: Indigo - Protest, Mutual Aid and Reciprocity
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Intervention: Indigo, is a project that combines procession, performance, dance, music, textile arts, costuming, ritual, improvised interactions with the audience, and protest.
Presented in Brooklyn in 2015 and in Mexico City in 2020. The work is a call to action to serve and protect—and a protest in response to the violence and murder at the hands of the police of Black people living in this country and all over the world. The point of departure is the color indigo, a dye that is used around the globe and associated with protection, wisdom, and royalty. At the onset of the pandemic, my work moved from reclaiming the metaphorics and symbolism of protection implicit in the color indigo, to literally making masks to serve and protect the people most affected by the pandemic: our QTBIPOC communities, who responded with powerful examples of reciprocity. This talk will focus on how an artistic intervention evolved into a practice of mutual aid.
About the Speaker
Laura Anderson Barbata
Born in Mexico City, Laura Anderson Barbata is a transdisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn and Mexico City. Since 1992, she has initiated long-term projects and collaborations in the Venezuelan Amazon, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and the United States that address issues of social justice and the environment. Her work often combines performance, procession, dance, music, textile arts, costuming, papermaking, zines, and protest.
Recipient of Anonymous Was a Woman Award, and grants from FONCA Mexico. Her work is in various private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; el Museo de Arte Moderno, México D.F.; and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary TBA21-Academy.
Intervention: Indigo in Bushwick, Brooklyn, 2015. Photo: Rene Cervantes. Chris Walker portraying Rolling Calf, the Brooklyn Jumbies, Laura Anderson Barbata portraying Little Jaguar, and Jarana Beat portraying Diablos.