Executive Director Statement:

From Melody Capote
Executive Director/CCCADI

Varying hues of brown - mulata, morena, negra.  Coarse, curly, wavy hair - pelo malo.  Full lips, fuller hips and lots of curves. The complexity of racial, ethnic and cultural identity within the African Diaspora, and navigating the “isms” that come with it, is all connected to internalized colonization and white supremacy.  Under the label of Latinidad, for Afro Latinos, that complexity is deep and intricate; their identity often challenged by others because of their complexion and their “look.” Afro Latinos continue to encounter the experience of not being viewed as Latino at all. Even at the simplest level of being spoken to in English when speaking in Spanish, because others cannot connect the visible identity with the actual identity. Multiply that complexity some more when discussing the experiences of Afro Latinas in particular. As an Afro Latina myself, my mother always reminded me as a young girl of the importance of being seen in all my Afro-Latina beauty.  No apologies and no excuses.  The challenge of the perceptions of being Black, Latina and a woman in society, yesterday and today, is why we are presenting  The Abyss of the Ocean: Cuban Women Photographers, Migrations, and the Question of Race, curated by Aldeide Delgado.

The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute has played a significant role in lifting the voices of African descendants, and particularly, those of Afro Latinos. Founded by Marta Moreno Vega, with the support of my mother Laura Moreno, these proud Afro Puerto Rican women built this institution to assure the existence of  a place that would be a reflection of me, my history and culture.  They made me aware of the obstacles and triumphs of being Afro Latina, a term we used at CCCADI as early as 1990 when few, if any, were even identifying as such.

Through programs we produced in the early nineties, for example, the annual Redefining African American: What's At Stake? CCCADI worked with international scholars who included Howard Dodson, Miriam Jimenez Roman, Juan Flores, Rosa Clemente, Espy Alejandra Campbell and others, to address the questions: Does the term African American need to be redefined?  Does it include or exclude the diversity of global African descendant populations that now reside in the U.S.?  What is Afro Latinidad and who gets to claim it?  While we have yet to reach a conclusion or full understanding to these questions, it is with programs like this exhibition that we can further expand on the issues of racial, ethnic and cultural identity, particularly ones that exist under the label of Afro Latinidad.  Through this all-female perspective, curated by women, with women photographers and women subjects, we are encouraged to dive deep into the chasm of our collective identity to explore the stereotypes, sexualization, objectification and racialization within it.

The Abyss of the Ocean: Cuban Women Photographers, Migrations, and the Question of Race aligns with the legacy of CCCADI creating space in not only elevating the voices, history and genius of African descendants but in this instance, highlighting Afro Latina creative expressions.  It validates the individual and collective experiences shared by Afro Latinas globally, placing a spotlight on the objectification and commodification of women and the blurred lens through which we are viewed and examined.  

There are also works in this show that force us to address the often degrading portrayal of the Latina woman throughout history, whether Black or white in features, as sexual attractions, dolls or toys to be played with and used.  Other works on view display valuable china and objects that are reflective of the conditions of class, race, gender and limited access imposed upon us.   These works nudge us to think about  movement and migration as we consider the impact of displacement and erasure of the original inhabitants and the absolute affront in the stripping of a people’s culture and land resulting in the appropriation by the “other.”  

It is an honor to present  The Abyss of the Ocean: Cuban Women Photographers, Migrations, and the Question of Race and the work of these five artists who come to us with various identities from within the Diaspora and who have survived, challenged and confronted the stereotypes and prejudices imposed on our very bodies as women.  Their art is their voice and they are teaching us that despite the differences in cultural and class backgrounds, there are shared experiences in claiming Latinidad that we grapple with as we continue to define its correlation to being Black and Latina. And so, the work continues.  

I want to thank the exhibition's curator Aldeide Delgado, the participating artists María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Coco Fusco, Marta María Pérez Bravo, Gertrudis Rivalta, and Juana Valdés and our curator at large, Grace Aneiza Ali, for sharing their visions and stories and articulating truths that we can no longer turn a blind eye to.