Son[i]a #430
Coco Fusco
Coco Fusco “The Couple in the Cage”, 1993 © Coco Fusco, VEGAP, Barcelona.
Coco Fusco is a Cuban-American artist and writer. Since the mid-1980s, her practice has revolved around performance, video art, photography, essay writing, research and teaching. Through all of these, Fusco explores concepts such as cultural, racial, and gender identity; the construction of alterity; colonial rule; and the various mechanisms of control, censorship and repression that systems of power impose on people’s bodies and lives.
The United States—with its immigration policies and imperialist behaviour—and the current global rise of the far right are some of the core themes of her work. So is Cuba. Through various projects, Fusco examines the unfulfilled promise of the Revolution, addressing both the consequences of the US embargo and the failures of the Cuban system itself. Her work restores the voices and legacy of Cuban artists, poets and filmmakers who have been silenced and repressed by the state.
In this podcast, Coco Fusco talks about her origins and about a family ecosystem that was always part United States and part Cuba, leading her to take on the role of translator from a very young age. We also talk about about unstable, anti-essentialist identities and, among other things, we look back at the impact of one of her early performances: Couple in The Cage: Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West, created with Guillermo Gómez-Peña between 1992 and 1994.
CONVERSATION: Loli Acebal, Javiera Cádiz and Anna Ramos. Script: Loli Acebal. Sound production: Albert Tarrats. Sounds: Albert Tarrats.
ATTRIBUTION/NON-COMMERCIAL/SHARE-ALIKE 4.0 INTERNATIONAL (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
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