0:00:11.744,0:00:15.920 FIRELEI BÁEZ:[br]In most power relationships, 0:00:16.720,0:00:19.120 you have the victim trying to solve the situation. 0:00:22.000,0:00:24.000 I don't want to create narratives of victimhood. 0:00:25.600,0:00:29.840 I want to flip it. 0:00:31.120,0:00:35.920 The freedom that I offer in each painting[br]is in the mutable body. 0:00:37.280,0:00:39.760 In having bodies in constant transition, 0:00:40.880,0:00:44.400 it leaves it open for the viewer to[br]shift ideas of power. 0:00:45.760,0:00:48.800 In that process,[br]you shift the world around you. 0:00:50.080,0:00:57.840 That's where beauty can be subversive. 0:01:28.320,0:01:28.640 ["Firelei Báez: An Open Horizon (or)[br]the Stillness of a Wound"] 0:01:28.640,0:01:30.000 If it were up to me, 0:01:30.000,0:01:32.800 I'd be a hermit in some mountain seascape, 0:01:33.480,0:01:34.480 [LAUGHS] 0:01:34.480,0:01:38.560 and I'd have my giant space with open windows, 0:01:38.560,0:01:39.840 and f*** it if rains comes in. 0:01:41.840,0:01:53.840 That's the dream. 0:01:53.840,0:01:55.205 [CHORAL SINGING] 0:01:55.205,0:01:57.680 [Firelei's studio, The Bronx] 0:01:57.680,0:01:59.520 But I remember always making. 0:02:00.240,0:02:01.520 Maybe one time when I was six, 0:02:03.040,0:02:07.840 other kids would have me draw out these[br]very fancy "mariquitas" for them. 0:02:09.280,0:02:11.440 I would have these elaborate ball gowns. 0:02:12.240,0:02:14.480 They would always have very intricate hair. 0:02:18.320,0:02:21.840 I was always dealing with the body. 0:02:23.920,0:02:28.720 My earliest childhood was in Loma de Cabrera, 0:02:28.720,0:02:32.400 which is right at the border of[br]Dominican Republic and Haiti. 0:02:32.400,0:02:35.120 [ARCHIVAL VOICE OVER][br]--Should you go straight out 0:02:35.120,0:02:37.200 --from that southeast end of Cuba, 0:02:37.200,0:02:40.720 --you will come next to the second largest[br]island of the romantic archipelago. 0:02:42.880,0:02:46.160 We would make all these assumptions of what[br]it is to be someone from the Caribbean, 0:02:47.360,0:02:50.560 and when you fall outside that,[br]then you can get something better. 0:02:53.920,0:02:56.800 One of the first reasons that I wanted to[br]work on these paintings 0:02:56.800,0:03:00.320 was looking at some of the first[br]scientific illustrations 0:03:00.320,0:03:02.080 of flora and fauna from the New World. 0:03:02.640,0:03:03.840 Looking at Carl Linneaus, 0:03:05.760,0:03:09.840 here is this guy who was the foundation of[br]modern scientific methods-- 0:03:09.840,0:03:12.346 of observation and categorization. 0:03:13.520,0:03:17.273 But so much of his work was sheer nonsense. 0:03:19.840,0:03:24.240 It equated the New World Black and Brown body 0:03:24.240,0:03:25.920 with beastiality. 0:03:29.840,0:03:32.797 In telling of what the New World people were, 0:03:32.797,0:03:35.181 you'd be next to cannibals and vampires-- 0:03:37.920,0:03:42.204 so, leaning into their already fallible vision 0:03:42.880,0:03:44.829 and making something new. 0:03:47.520,0:03:50.080 In reading my paintings of "ciguapas," 0:03:50.080,0:03:54.320 I'm asking the viewer to come to terms[br]with their own feelings 0:03:54.320,0:03:56.968 around a woman's body. 0:04:00.425,0:04:05.457 [Ciguapa: A mythological [br]creature of Domincan folklore] 0:04:06.113,0:04:08.360 The ciguapa is this trickster figure. 0:04:08.640,0:04:10.124 She is a seductress. 0:04:11.200,0:04:15.723 Someone will be lured by her and then [br]be completely lost and never seen again. 0:04:18.640,0:04:21.270 The description is so ambiguous. 0:04:21.600,0:04:24.080 It can be anything from a mongoose, 0:04:24.080,0:04:26.000 to the most beautiful woman, 0:04:26.000,0:04:28.240 to the most ugly woman. 0:04:28.240,0:04:30.887 The only certain thing is [br]that her legs are backwards-- 0:04:31.600,0:04:35.207 if you followed their footsteps, you [br]were going in the wrong direction-- 0:04:36.640,0:04:40.079 and that she has this lustrous mane of hair. 0:04:41.360,0:04:44.480 She was meant to be something [br]that made us so fearful 0:04:44.480,0:04:48.960 that we could be quiet for long [br]enough to be groomed into civility. 0:04:55.120,0:04:57.680 The normative tone of the story 0:04:58.240,0:05:01.120 is these are wanton female creatures. 0:05:01.120,0:05:04.400 They're hyper-sexual and they derail culture. 0:05:05.680,0:05:08.640 The understory is they are highly independent, 0:05:09.200,0:05:10.400 they're self-possessed, 0:05:10.960,0:05:12.880 and they feel deeply. 0:05:14.720,0:05:16.301 So who would want to be that? 0:05:18.960,0:05:21.120 What was exciting in using that image 0:05:21.120,0:05:25.680 was to be able to incorporate all [br]those things that were labeled abject-- 0:05:25.680,0:05:28.320 that were seen as unwanted-- 0:05:28.320,0:05:31.120 and reframe them as something beautiful 0:05:31.120,0:05:33.425 and with an eye of desire. 0:05:36.386,0:05:40.000 ["Ciguapa Antellana," 2018, Harlem] 0:05:42.480,0:05:44.800 I recently went to my aunts, and she was like, 0:05:44.800,0:05:47.404 "You know, I never would have [br]thought you would be an artist." 0:05:48.240,0:05:51.840 She was the one who was[br]raising us when I was about seven. 0:05:53.040,0:05:56.640 For her, she saw it as a [br]little bit of troublemaking, 0:05:57.920,0:06:00.880 because I'd be the one [br]trying to sew paper together 0:06:00.880,0:06:03.200 and getting my finger stuck in the needle. 0:06:04.400,0:06:06.000 Like sewing right through my finger. 0:06:06.000,0:06:08.160 But I was just like, "I want to bind my book." 0:06:08.160,0:06:10.213 "It's going to be the thing. [br]I'm going to make it perfect." 0:06:14.400,0:06:18.236 They did call me...I don't know if it [br]was "The Demolisher" or "The Hellion." 0:06:18.236,0:06:19.034 [LAUGHS] 0:06:20.240,0:06:22.720 Whenever I imagine a painter, 0:06:22.720,0:06:24.880 it's someone who is very composed-- 0:06:24.880,0:06:26.559 kind of like a "lady painter." 0:06:27.120,0:06:29.440 But, I feel like a car mechanic. 0:06:32.800,0:06:35.101 My mom is a master seamstress. 0:06:35.920,0:06:38.160 She can make really beautiful things. 0:06:38.160,0:06:41.440 But she was so caught up in a 100-hour work week 0:06:42.800,0:06:45.741 that she always does things for bare function. 0:06:46.560,0:06:48.648 It makes for a lot of precarity. 0:06:49.040,0:06:52.080 So none of the things that you build tend to last. 0:06:53.520,0:06:56.880 I'm trying to break that cycle [br]and teach my nephews and nieces 0:06:56.880,0:07:01.040 to think of themselves as part [br]of longer cycles behind them 0:07:01.040,0:07:03.127 and long cycles before them-- 0:07:04.080,0:07:08.603 that every choice that we make is predicated [br]by the people we hope to love in the future 0:07:08.720,0:07:10.435 and the people we love in the past. 0:07:14.240,0:07:16.106 It's always within your grasp 0:07:16.640,0:07:18.301 to make something new. 0:07:19.680,0:07:20.915 It's exhausting, 0:07:22.320,0:07:24.325 but limitless.