Juan-Sí González

Juan-Sí González
Santiago

Nationality :
Cuban

About me:
I was born on an island, a fragment of earth floating in the ocean, where nothing is stable except the continuity of movement. My life in Cuba, where I was born, educated, and began the first part of my career, was marked by scarce resources and improvisation born of immediate necessity. As a result, there is no fixed method to my creative process. I work with what I have, with what I find, to translate myself as clearly as I can. In Cuba, I used ephemeral forms of expression such as body art, political street performances, Interventions and underground videos. In Miami, I began building objects and large-scale installation pieces in an effort to create something tangible, a sense of ownership and belonging in my country of exile. In New York City, and even more so in Yellow Springs, Ohio, I was confronted with a new reality: the need to speak and understand English in order to do even the most basic activities. I experienced the impotence of one who is lost and whose voice has been suddenly taken away. I developed a fixation with language. Words took on new dimensions. They became my crutches; upon them all else depended. But when words fail, we have numbers. They are what measure us and identify us. The tools of measurement in my work represent the oppressive sense of measuring up, the feeling of being judged that we face daily. At the same time, I must rely on these tools as points of reference, as a system of control in an environment that still feels unfamiliar. The ability to quantify and classify even the unknown provides the illusion of security. I recognize the subtle complexities inherent in my hybridization, and attempt to vindicate the diversity that I carry with me, as well as that which surrounds me. I am trying to create a bridge between my past and present, between two identities that I once believed were irreconcilable. My work is the result of an emotional and geographic displacement. It is the hyphen connecting two cultures, two languages and two ideologies. It reflects my continual process of integration and disintegration, using visual fragments to reconstruct the trajectory of my personal journey.