Joiri Minaya's Pattern Making | Art21 "New York Close Up"

(birds chirping)

(water flowing)

- Place is important in my work.

Coming from a place that is

determined in other people's imagination.

I'm interested in the idea of opacity.

(street traffic rumbling softly)

A right to remain opaque,

even to yourself,

even things that you may not
understand about yourself,

and being at peace with that

and not having to explain
yourself to others.

I think the way it manifests in my work

is through all these layers
that I'm playing with.

Particularly as it relates
to the idea of camouflage,

'cause I think it's some type
of opacity in a visual way.

(waves lapping)

Camouflage is this survival
strategy in the natural world.

As we navigate society,
this idea of blending in or

being visible,

and having control of that,

I think is a tool for
liberation, in a way.

(sirens wailing)

(upbeat Reggaeton music)

My name is Joiri Minaya.

I'm a multidisciplinary visual artist

based in New York from
the Dominican Republic.

What else do I say?

My pronouns are she/her.

I've been interested in patterns
as a metaphor for society.

How people repeat and
embody these patterns.

Siboney is about labor

and unpacking the laboriousness

behind the facade of tropical packaging,

and thinking of women's
role in this packaging.

♪ ♪ ♪

There's an interesting process

that happens when you see an image

that you don't necessarily
have language for immediately.

♪ ♪ ♪

I'm interested in how an image

has the power to transmit
a lot in a very short time,

but then how you can spend a
longer time with that image

and unpack all of these other things.

The Container series
developed from the collages

that I did initially for

the Dominican Women Google Search series.

I started saving the images

that I found on the Google search

and classifying them

by the way they were posing,

'cause I thought there were some patterns.

Or maybe I'm just fixated on patterns.

But I thought there were some patterns

in the way that women
pose for the cameras.

Like there was a lot of like arms akimbo

and like a lot of like obelisk-esque poses

of women lying on the beach.

And I started recognizing

how some of those are
things that I did myself.

(people chatting)

Well, I started sewing body suits

that forced me to embody these poses,

as an exploration for myself

but also to question this
type of performativity,

because you initially
recognize it very quickly

but then there's the weirdness

of this person being fully encased.

(upbeat drumming)

(car horns honking)

I grew up in the city of Santo Domingo

which is full of concrete

and notoriously lacking public parks.

I really appreciate nature
when I can access it.

At the same time, I'm aware of my possible

probable romanticization of nature.

When I go back to the region
where my family's from

I'm really excited about this nature.

But then my mom is like,

well, growing up we were really
concerned about parasites

and like the heat is really awful,

and you can be raped in the dark.

So, like there's all of this
fears and dangers of nature

which are very real.

(waves lapping)

(ground crunching under feet)

Site specificity and the
history that a place has

has been important,

specifically with the works
where I'm making new patterns

in response to the patterns
that I have been appropriating.

I've been designing
patterns that look tropical

and are playing with the visual language

of botanical illustration.

But, looking at plants that were used

by people who resisted colonial processes

through the use of these plants.

So, some plants have been
used to make weapons,

sometimes have been used to make poisons,

sometimes these plants are used
to speak to your ancestors.

So, I'm interested in all
of these different systems

of resistance through these plants.

The main way that I've showcased this

is printing them on fabric

that is then used to
cover colonizer statues.

I'm thinking of a way to
re-signify that public space

that is used to commemorate
colonial history,

and instead trying to
commemorate the people

who resisted colonialism
who don't have a statue.

Just thinking of public space

as this space that's
supposed to be democratic,

but then, of course,

there's like forces that
determine what is more significant

and what is left out.

I'm trying to tell the
stories that remain untold.

(upbeat percussive music)