Borderland feedback, a memorial for Gloria Andalzúa

The presentation delves into the creative process of the A/V performance, “Borderland feedback, a video memorial for Gloria Andalzúa,” which aimed to embody the literature of Andalzúa´s Borderlands/La Frontera (1987). The A/V incantation* was enacted in Brooklyn, NY, at the Wavefield gallery basement, through a closed circuit video using a Mini-DV camera, the standard model used in 2004, when Gloria died. The public can only see the live video performance on the gallery’s top floor through a projection. The video performance starts with reading the poem “To Live in the Borderlands means you” (Borderlands/La Frontera p.194).

At the end of the reading, the public is invited to enter the basement, symbolizing the ‘underworld’ dimension, which, in the Zapotec culture, is the space where open communication with our ancestors and the deceased can happen. In the basement, a modular synth sound performance processes vocal samples of the book readings found online. The sound is transmitted through several radios displayed in the space, where the audience can hold and quietly hear.

This performance was presented at