Arts Everywhere: The SAA Podcast
Arts Everywhere: The SAA Podcast
Episode 20 - Arts Everywhere - Visions of Identity: The Two-Spirit Journey of Alejandro Romero
When Alejandro Romero left his medical studies for the unpredictable world of art, he set in motion a compelling life story. Our latest podcast episode invites you into an intimate conversation with this two-spirit artist, whose lens captures more than just images—it seizes moments of transformation and truth. Alejandro's journey from the vibrant life of Puerto Rico to the vast prairies of Saskatchewan is a testament to the power of embracing one's identity and weaving it into the fabric of a new community. His insights on the challenges of public art, the nuances of neurodivergence, and the ethics of photography offer a refreshing perspective on what it means to live authentically as an immigrant and queer artist in Canada.
Links related to this episode:
Alejandro's website: https://www.iamalejandro.com/bio-manifiesto
The SaskScapes Podcast episode featuring Alejandro and others:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1660786/7615693
Thank you to SaskCulture, SKArts, and Sask Lotteries for your generous support.
Visit our website: https://www.saskartsalliance.ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saskartsalliance/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/skartsalliance
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saskartsalliance/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@saskatchewanartsalliance57
STARTING SEASON 2, THEME MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
Patrick Moon Bird: https://linktr.ee/PatrickMoonBird
https://www.facebook.com/PatrickMoonBirdMusic/
Kevin Power: http://www.kevinpower.net/ The Saskscapes Podcast: https://saskscapes.buzzsprout.com/
Your collective voice for the arts across Saskatchewan. This is Arts Everywhere, the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance podcast. It's always a treat to hear the story of acquaintances from my past. Alejandro Romero was one of a panel of guests I assembled for one of the very first podcast episodes in my series, sascapes. I was struck then, as I am now, by the profundity in the way Alejandro talks about his life and work. I'm quoting now from his website, and you'll find the link in the show notes to that site, and I strongly encourage you to visit the site while you're listening or when you're done listening. Anyway, part of his artist statement says the following I'm an interrupter, a social activist, a post-modernist, a disruptor and, at times, a shapeshifter.
Speaker 1:Many personas and characters come alive for the participatory arts interventions I perform. It is my interest to formalize conversations about uncomfortable issues that most people don't want to talk about. Alejandro is originally from Puerto Rico and his journey to Saskatchewan is filled with marvelous opportunities and training. He identifies as two-spirit, which makes sense given his own family history, and, as a two-spirit person, has a deep appreciation for Saskatchewan's land and indigeneity. He says in this episode you don't belong in this place, but you are every part of this earth. Alejandro says he doesn't like to be visible Ironic, really, considering just how involved he has been and continues to be in the arts and all of its glorious aspects. I, for one, am glad that Alejandro is as visible as he is, even if it is not his life's goal to be so. So sit back and enjoy M Ironstone's conversation with Alejandro Romero.
Speaker 2:Hi Alejandro.
Speaker 3:Hi M, how are you?
Speaker 2:doing I'm good. Thanks for taking the time to chat this morning. Thank you.
Speaker 3:It is cold out, so your warm smile just warm the room and it's good to see yeah.
Speaker 2:It's so nice to have a chance to chat with you. We've seen each other quite a bit over Zoom, but it's nice to have a chat in person.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like since COVID, these in-person meetings have been neglected to the computer. I prefer to meet people in person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was thinking back on my walk over here. We've known each other now for quite a long time, like I think it's got to be getting close to 10 years.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Yeah, it's been. I think you were of high school university.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You're still finishing university. When I met you first and then you just got that job for SAS culture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as a photographer. Yeah, and culture days.
Speaker 3:And culture days.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that was kind of yeah, that would have been way back, but yeah, it's been kind of neat to see how our paths have crossed over the years.
Speaker 3:In many different places and locations.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:This land is interesting how it connects people.
Speaker 2:Definitely, but I guess, for the people out there listening, maybe if you could just take a couple minutes and introduce yourself and tell us who we're talking to.
Speaker 3:Yes, Hi everybody. I am Alejandro. I am two-spirited, identified as queer and I go by the pronouns he day and I've been in this land for a long time but 23 years, but I wasn't of this land. So I just like to first start being grateful that I've been welcomed by the first peoples of this land, all the different nations. I have nurtured friends and they have been welcoming here since I came here. Actually, Before I came here, my very first person that I met was Adrian Stimson. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I met him in Calgary, which is interesting, and then he came here and then he was my mentor for Carfack as well. So we have had a long path of relation. How do we relate? And then, after I was working in the city and we were lucky to work on a public art project. But, going back to my origins, I am from the Taino Nation, which is indigenous people from the Caribbean, specifically for Jamaica, dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and Haiti. I'm from Puerto Rico and I'm one of few people that are from there that have lived in this land for 20 something years. So I cannot call this home, I cannot call my back home home.
Speaker 3:I cannot call anywhere in the planet home. So I at times feel homeless, and that's what sort of frame who I am, since I was a child, being neurodivergent. Right, you feel that you don't belong to this place, but you feel that you are in every part of this earth. So to me, moving wasn't difficult, it was just adapting to how people relate to me and how I relate to them. In many ways, I always have been an introvert, even though it doesn't show, but I have learned to fake it properly, based on On being an artist and how to tell stories.
Speaker 3:I remember I can go back as a child and I remember one of the first gifts that I got when I was three or four years old was a camera. And then, as I age, I'm 52 years already and I recall that I have had a camera in my hand as a testimony of my art and also collecting memories and collecting stories, so that sort of shape who I was and how I see the world. I relate to the world a lot through the lens of a camera. Regardless that I am not known as a photographer, I do it as mostly documenting. I don't think I have ever done an exhibition of my photographs I don't pay attention of the technicalities of it, mostly the opportunities that it provides to document and conserve and preserve memories that otherwise would be lost. So to me that's my connection to photography and to art as a very young age. And then the other thing that I recall I always was interested in pencil and coloring and the shape of things, and I've been doing art since I was a child. My mother was instrumental of guiding that At that age.
Speaker 3:I never thought that I would be an artist, a practicing artist, because I have other other likings to. I love animals and I always been obsessed with horses and I thought that I might become a veterinarian or a doctor. I recall when I was also young, my other gift that I was given by Ananti. That was so that somehow gave me some of those stethoscopes and I work fake and plastic and I pretend that I hear people, hearts and animals. I have little dogs at the time and I just put it in the plants and stuff like that. Of course nothing came out, but I made up what would it sound and my curiosity was always there Later on. So I have a passion for science and technology and a passion for art because of the spirit.
Speaker 3:And then when I went to junior high school, I was fortunate enough that I took a test and went to one of the only art school in the whole country and it happens to be closer to where I grew up, but you have to pass a test. It was a beautiful, 100 year old school in a very prominent zone which was in El Condado, which is like calling the Broadway of the town, and I just spent six years of my junior high and high school doing art for six years. So I was fortunate enough that I have that guidance. That was specialized school and it was good in sciences and good in art and I have good marks. I was a quick learner. I got bored a lot because I learned a lot. I graduated and entered university when I was 15 years old.
Speaker 3:I don't tell this story a lot because people think that you're bragging or you're thinking that you're sort of a precious kid. But so I was very young in the field of charts and I entered university to do mining biologists. But I even now grown in the closer to the ocean. I don't like to be in the zone, I always like the shade and I like I don't like to be that visible. And then why would I choose an art as a practice when it's very visible? So I entered the university to become a veterinarian, but there was no vet schools. There was also. I got accepted in the art school but I got scared.
Speaker 3:And this is a story that I haven't shared a lot, but I was 15 years old going to a school of art where there was a lot of people that were performances and I, the first day that I went to to see in in the visitations of school, I recall this transgender person modeling and be very flamboyant, doing a performance, and I got scared, very scared, and I don't know at the time who I was. I was very young. I have, I have not identified myself with any sexuality at all. I understood that in my own mind, that that love is love, and, recalling back, and I never saw a problem of, of of that gender or queer identity, but there was no conversations about it. So it was that I. It wasn't that I was isolated or or or not exposed to to queer identity, but it was for me impactful, how flamboyant, how loud and how big this person was, who then eventually become a very prominent artist in the island and and so then I determined no, this is not a place for me. I don't. I feel intimidated, even though I have the skills and I passed the exam. You have to pass exam to go to that university. Today is the biggest art university, but at the time it didn't have the accreditation. So I talked to a counselor and they said, if you want to do art, just go to the public university, the University of PR, where all the best artists were at the time. I, as I said, I I started studying medicine and again I, 15 years old, I have to go and live in another town and be in in and have roommates that I never met again. It was very hard. I got scared. So then my uncle managed to, because I have the grades, transferred me to a different program in a different university that I have to take four buses to go. So I was a little bit lost, 15 years old college, but I managed. And then I just transferred.
Speaker 3:I took an art class because I missed it, and then I had a good art teacher, carmelo Fontana, a very prominent artist, and and he said, why are you wasting your time doing sciences? You're one of us. Don't waste your time, you're gonna end up doing this. Why don't you just keep doing it? So then I went to talk to the counselor and the university that I was a. It was a regional of the main public university. They have different schools in different parts of the island to provide accessibility to two people and more opportunities. So then he, I managed to talk to the counselor and he said Well, you can just take as many classes as you have here and then ask for a change of program. And what took people three years? It took me one year to do it and I did that because then I took an exam. He said if you take an exam, you have the skills, you have the job. Take the exam to enter this, the school, the art school at the university, and because you already have six years of education in arts and your portfolio I had a nice portfolio they allow me to do the transfer in six months.
Speaker 3:So so then I did my my degree and I did archaeology and I did photography with a professor from the Chicago Art School, guy Pisces. He was French. We didn't get along well, I remember, but I learned a lot of and sort of that diverted my interest in photography a lot. I did, as I was in university, professional photography to pay my university. So I will, I work as a professional photographer in media and public relationship for a long time, four or five times, and with that I pay my college, finish my college and pay my master's degree in cultural studies, which was in the arts, working with identity and what's not. So I, because of my preparation, at 22 years I became a director of an office and I went to Bolivia. I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer for for a few years. I have done lots right and then, but always art was in the back burner and at the time I always carry cameras.
Speaker 3:Traveling for me was work. It was never to to just go and see it and do nothing. I have been to places, but mostly have been through work or through experience, education and work. Few places that I have gone for family things, that it is a little bit more, more touristy. But I hate to be a tourist. I like learning about other cultures, I like other people to learn about me, but mostly I like to have third housings unfold and and that's my journey until fast track.
Speaker 3:I came to Canada. I in Puerto Rico, I couldn't do art exhibitions or nothing, because I work for the art and culture department of the city. I was there. There was an executive director that was the person that just was in charge and I was his second. I did most of the work. He was an entomologist, so he knew a lot about insects and he has a PhD in that. But because of connections he got that position. He was the nephew of the minister of culture. So then he got that position in the city.
Speaker 3:So I had a lot of work and it created a lot of animosity with other people because I supervised more than 50 people and I was very young. I was under 30 at the time. I was 20, 26, 27 years old and was too young and people didn't take me serious Thought that I was this pretentious kid that wanted to tell them how to do things and what's not. And in fact I was naive and I did some of that. But that was my duty and I needed to follow some of those process and create new projects and initiatives. So that's my trajectory in the art before I move here.
Speaker 3:So because of that position I could not have.
Speaker 3:There's an ethical ethics in government that doesn't allow you to work with any person that you relate to in terms of work.
Speaker 3:So if I met a person that was related or manage a gallery or manage a museum or people that manage grants, working in the government and relating to them in other professional interactions, I could not apply to anything.
Speaker 3:So I did a trip to promote Puerto Rican horses to Canada through the government as well, and I came twice and in the second journey I met my partner and that's when I decided. At the time we dated for two years, I think, and then I moved here and I started doing my art full time and now I work for the City of Saskatoon and the Public Art Consultant and I'm volunteering a lot of boards because I had a lot given to me and I have a lot of people that supported me and it's a way to give back and provide some feedback on my experience and how I see things. And as an immigrant to Canada, as a queer person, as a man of color, as a man that is neurodivergent even though I don't mention these things a lot because it's unnecessary, but now that we are talking on, this is something that I think authenticity is my thing now and I think it is important that we bring that to the fold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. Wow, it's interesting. There's a lot of things I didn't know about your story. Thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I usually don't like to tell things because I like people to discover. I think it is important that we take the time and we ask questions. Yeah, we interact with people for a long time and sometimes we just are very superficial. I find that in Canada that's a way to relate. People don't want to go deep. They're fearful of revealing their weaknesses. In my culture, everybody knows what you do. They know everything about you. So, yes, it's nosy, but when you are in the lows you don't have to ask for help. They're there and I miss that a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Do you find in where you are now? Do you find that you are able to do as much art and be involved in your like, have an active art practice as much as you would like to, or do you find that that's something that you would like to try to put more time towards?
Speaker 3:I would love if there was opportunities for artists that are committed to doing their practice for more than 10 years, that there should be some kind of support. It seems that in the arts you always depend on grants and you're always competing with the same people or new people or other people, and they are led by the ideologies of the government of what they want to target. And I understand that. This is a time for women, this is a time for newcomers, people that are recently gone and arrived to Canada, and it is a time for indigenous people, rightfully so, and I can put my place. I can just surrender my space for them. But said that sometimes I like to, when I have a project, I like to work on projects. Sometimes it takes one year, two years, because I am a full-time city worker and I don't use my personal time to do my professional time, to do personal work. I also sit on boards and I think that's important. So I work on projects and I collaborate with other artists and I mentor a lot of people and I don't tell a lot of that and partially because I find that that's a gift that I have and that's part of my practice supporting others and do projects.
Speaker 3:I have done a few projects for Nuit Blanche, independent. I'm not managed by any gallery. I don't exhibit in big galleries either. I think it is an obsolete model and it is quite prejudiced and there's an ego-based and economic-based way of moving in that environment, right. So that's what I mean. There's a lot of authentic art that is out there that is overlooked because they're not, they're from people that are shy or are not interested in the ego-driven world of arts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3:So, to answer your question, I would love to do my work full-time. It's just that it is very hard because my work is based. I do performance and installations. It's not something that you can just sit on a table and then just in half an hour you have it. It's usually layered and layered and layered and it takes time to research I can.
Speaker 3:I went to a residency to Africa Northern Africa, Morocco and did a project that I had. I wanted to work with the idea of queer identity in Muslim culture and I have a person that I was a microphone and everything. It was a multi-disciplinary and I want to capture their story because it was fascinating. And he asked permission. He was not the eldest son and he thought that I was going to make money, which I would have, because you get funded sometimes but it's not money that you can just retribute and pay them and there's no way that I can even send money back to them. So when I have him, mic and everything, he just didn't feel comfortable and I have to drop that project.
Speaker 3:So I took the opportunity because I did other workshops while I was there in the residency and I worked with immigrants and we did some sandals and some flags and then I did a project here. I booked a place. I didn't wait for a gallery to fund me. I got some grants from the arts board, which was great, and it was a sitting granite, traveling granite thousand bucks. But I ended up investing in my own money $7,000 to do a project and that not a lot of people saw. But I spent 12 days in that year that I took as a radical to do it, 12 days in a public park providing free access to people transients to come and enjoy a work of art that speaks about immigration. And I didn't advertise either. I sent invitations to different people and with the times of the, I did the installation and also I did a performance that went with that installation and it also comprised of video, sound and lights.
Speaker 3:I like when people can immerse in the experience, but it's an intimate experience. So I tried them working on a project right now that I will love to showcase in one of the festivals, but I would do it on my own and as a flash mob, without a lot of advertisement, because what is important to me is how people respond to the work and what they take from it. It doesn't have to be viewed by 10,000 people. To me that's not important. If two people see it and they are touched by it and they remember it for a long time and that changed their life and they manifest other bounty or other good things in their life, that to me is a success. So my success, my successes are not matured by quantity or dollars. It's by spiritual connection and interrelations with other people, and to me that's the work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's beautiful, I like that.
Speaker 3:But again, how can you document that?
Speaker 3:Yeah for real In going out and interviewing people like you have to produce, you have to research, you have to document while you are on a costume and you create these identities and these personas. And then you have to be the sound tech, the light, check everything right, because otherwise you end up paying a lot of money that we don't have right. As I said, I did a project another project that was called Restitution for Noid Blanche a few years ago. I think it was the first or the second Noid Blanche in Saskatoon and it was a performance that basically transformed the land titles building in Saskatoon and I went all the permits and I talked to the owners of the building that have had. It's not the land building, land titles building anymore, but symbolically, the performance was to make people sign a note to restore and bring back the, give back the land to the indigenous people, and I have a race of a flock.
Speaker 3:I worked with elders there was and I did a light box with with Sun. I created with with Earth from the land and I created a turtle and then I put a. I put when it was created. I invite people to do some of, add more to it and then after I just took that and then just bless a little bit of land, of that earth in every person and then I offered the all the soil to the river. So it is quite poetic and it is quite cathartic for me to do those things. They might not mean much to others, but what it does to me, I treasure that and that's my practice, right, it's very intimate.
Speaker 2:It's almost moment.
Speaker 3:It is a moment and that is stuck in my heart and in my brain. And I have a group of volunteers my partner always help and I have people that always volunteer of the day. I put tents, I put napkins, I create, I create shirts. Most of these projects have a teacher. That goes to the volunteers and it's a limited edition. Only they have it and that's my gratitude for them, because I cannot pay them.
Speaker 3:I wish I could pay them, but there's not the funding to do it. So I do my own little festival of things that show up in places. My challenge has been documenting it, because you have to pay a documenter and that costs money and, yes, you can put it on a grant, but the time you have the grant, the grant doesn't cover for that right and I like to pay people. Well, I think people that do their work they deserve to get paid properly, because I know the importance of that. Yes, I miss working full time. I wish I was way way and get paid to do art right and that we have a system here that somehow we validate the work that is not two dimensional gallery, all European style work.
Speaker 3:I think there's a lot of people doing great things that never get shown because people don't see it. We don't have those connections to the galleries and the mainstream art. Nobody wants to write about us and if we want somebody to write about it we have to pay them to write about us and I find that a little bit corrupt and in that corruption I don't want to be part on it. So I do my thing. It takes longer and it's slow and I don't need to be a famous artist. That's not why I do art. I don't need to be known as the best artist of the world, because in my own world I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was wondering maybe if you could talk a little bit about what you do at the city and the world of public art and Saskatoon and kind of how that fits into your life.
Speaker 3:Well, I was here and then I went back to Puerto Rico because my dad was sick and then he ended up dying and by that time I was also doing my Canadian citizenship. And I recall that I was there in Puerto Rico, coming back for a job interview here for the city of Saskatoon, because somebody from the city that I knew was Smita Garg and Shelley McNeil they were both working for the city at the time and they say, alejandro, did you hear about that? The city is creating this position for a public art consultant. What do you think about that? They're doing a presentation on council and I got very interested and I went to council to support it, so I just called.
Speaker 3:I was a bureaucrat before. This has come very natural to me. I've been in. I was a director of secretary, director of an office, so I have been through all that process of negotiating in council, those things or in the ministries and all that right. That was my job for five to six years and I learned a lot of skills with that. So I went and I did a short presentation and I called, followed the process, called first to see what was the process, and I called and I read about it and I went and saw the art and I was surprised how much art it was. But there was no connection and it was not curated properly. It was mostly and I did my research it was mostly metal sculptures and it was made by four or five artists that came from one school of thought and one school of practice and I just recall saying this has to change.
Speaker 3:We have to give opportunities to other sectors. I was talking about the inclusion of different identities, including first nations right, because at the time there was no such thing. So I guess that when the position came up they approved it and I saw it posted and I applied and then when they called me for the interview, my dad died on a Monday. I came on a Tuesday, I had the interview on a Wednesday, I live on a Thursday and I buried my dad on a Friday and it also coincided with my citizenship.
Speaker 2:Wow. So, what a time.
Speaker 3:I called the citizenship Canada at the time and I said I'm dealing with this, it's too much, can we postpone this? And said if you don't do it now, you have to start the process again. So then I just have to and I explained and I said I have all the documentation, I'm not making this out, I'm not on holidays, I just came here, anyway. So I spoke about that and I recall how many times I was told oh, you're very grateful that you're a Canadian citizen, they give you your citizenship. And I said no, I earn it, I pay for it and I probably know more about Canada than most people, because I talk and I have to study and it's very colonial and I have to memorize and research and you have to take exam. That is quite intimidating, quite quiet in a very cold building with a lot of a transgression, in the sense that you have to provide a lot of information. You cannot go with anybody. You have to sit on a line, you have to wait and wait and then you just go in, do the exam, you have your time to do it and then you just go out and you don't know anything. You don't know.
Speaker 3:I was the first one to finish. I knew that I just nailed it and then, after they call me, yes, you passed the exam and then we will call you for your ceremony. So that's when my dad passed during that period of ceremony. So it was quite interesting how all this happened and I might have the dates of the job interview. Probably was after, but I know that I came to talk to council in that week that I did my citizenship and then a year after, a few years after, I also was in Puerto Rico and they did the interview. So I have to fly here to go to that interview. I competed with more than 12 people.
Speaker 3:I was the person with the most education, I'm probably most government experience, and I got the job so without knowing anybody. So I was very content and I think my partner celebrated it more than me. At the time I was questioning if I should do this job or do something else or just quit altogether and go back home.
Speaker 3:So that's a little bit of a story of how I got to the city and I just been working for the community development department and I've been the Arts and Culture Consultant for 11 years now. I have dedicated my years in the city to research the policy which was obsolete and was 20 years or more older, and I researched with my boss at the time, kevin Kitchen. I did a lot of research and what was interesting is that, incorporated, based on my experience working in the Culture Department and managing that portfolio in Puerto Rico, in the city of San Juan, I have the opportunity to read Spanish, portuguese, french and English, so I just went and researched the great programs that they have in South Africa, brazil, colombia, mexico.
Speaker 3:Puerto Rico is the worst, but give me the white canvas to see what can be improved and from that I started researching and then we just came up with a public art policy that was the newest in Canada at the time. So then we from the beginning we included those new voices and indigenous and First Nations in the policy and then other cities started to copy that and implement that. That's not something that is told a lot, but I think that is important, that we in this city know that that's an achievement that we have, that that policy was consulted by many. We have in the city and I've been managing that for the last 11 years, as I said, a lot of learning at the beginning. Now it's you still learn, but it's easier because you were part of the process of creating it. So we increase the amount of public art in the city.
Speaker 3:If you go, it's one of the portfolios in the country that have the most indigenous work. We have more than nine pieces of indigenous work in a collection. I would say 10 to 16, but I don't have those numbers. So but I'm for sure I know that some of the biggest. We have work made by Adrian Stinson, three pieces by Ruth Cothan actually four by Ruth Cothan and Henry Lau. We have pieces from Doc Menthan that is a very well-known artist, a collection, the collection of Bill Epp. That was a professor.
Speaker 3:We have John Sebastian, who's finishing his master and many other artists that I would love that the city have the funding, because the program is underfunded. We don't have the capacity, we just do marvelous things and we've been very creative how we fund the arts. We do lots with less, which it grows and expands. Because the city has the potential and I always say that this is the point, that that probably to me is the most important that when you go and visit the city, you remember the city for their landmarks, where people connect, how people interact with their art and his art. It could be in the form of buildings or it could be in a form of just taking a photograph and that just and I know this by my years as a young photographer that I went to places and I was interested in what were the human connection to the place and how those stories were told.
Speaker 2:Well, I definitely, you know, having spent more time in Saskatoon the last year year and a half, I think, you know and I spend a lot, I walk around a lot and I, you know, you can I notice I pay attention to a lot of the public art around the city and, you know, I think that's just kind of part of my nature too, but it's a real gift I think we don't have in Regina, we don't have the same level, and when I come here, it certainly is something that I really appreciate.
Speaker 3:And thank you for saying that, because I tell people in Saskatoon how fortunate they are and how fortunate I am that I can just make these things happen. They don't happen on their own. There's a lot of consultation, there's a lot of engagement and mostly now, but we've been doing it for from the very beginning. I recall that the process started to become very democratic and we have to navigate some of the city policy driven strategies because when you talk about vulnerable communities and when you talk about people that have not been, have been marginalized and that have not been visible and represented in public art sculpture or public art period or even in the city as citizens, it is important that to render some of those policies processes and find ways, creative ways that, yes, you follow the processes but also you empower people, and we have done that with some of the indigenous work. It's a different way of working, it's a different way to relating and I am grateful that I have as friends and I have met people that have taught me a lot Laurie Blondo, rebecca Belmore, adrian Stinson again, lionel Piashu, kristy Belcourt. There's a lot of people that I have met and there's a lot of people that have supported all these processes. There was a car fuck driven research that it was. I recall it was in one scale one. It was stronger than Felicia Gay, who is now in Regina. We have all these people here at one point, all together with these ideologies of indigenous identity, and they are converging in Saskatoon and I was here to witness that and to me that has been the biggest gift that I have given in all my practice. So that project, stronger Than Stone, marked my way of how to look at public art from an indigenous lens and have provided me the opportunity to be a facilitator and also be an ally. So these voices and these stories are told from their own eyes. And, yes, not all the art has to be done by indigenous people, but we have to, if they are interpreting indigenous stories, ensure that those processes and those protocols are done properly and they are working with the community and not and for the community. It's not about self serving them to get a paycheck and then just bring an idea that doesn't resonate with the community. That's somehow there they are making the work for. So that has shifted and I think it has to do with my own experience as an immigrant in Saskatoon.
Speaker 3:Having indigenous and being proud of my indigenous heritage means nothing here, but it means something when I grew up and from when I come from. Having indigenous roots you are somebody special because you are of the land, you are the original people there, and I always knew that and I look more Muslim and I look more Islamic and I look more Arabic. But my grandmother was an proud indigenous person and I have my DNA to prove it. I just and I we always knew. My mom always said you grandmother was an indigenous woman and she was a medicine woman. Her cousin who was my brother, my grandfather's brother, he was a medicine man, right, and that was my closest relationship to a grandfather that I had.
Speaker 3:So those are things that you don't understand at the time, but later on in life, life put you in the places that you can use some of those tools. We just don't know. So then, if we think about what COVID did for some in that isolation process, it allows us to go inwards and just make those connections and make those memories in excess of what are we doing here? How are we contributing to this moment? What is the best way that we can contribute to to achieve this society to be a better place for people to gather, to connect and to be kind with one another, and that's something that is sometimes hard to put in the work of art, because the people out there are not interested in those conversations. They're interested in conversations of being aggressive, forced and be politically active in a sense that is aggressive.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I think with actions we can move forward and with examples we can. Other people can identify with the work that you do, but I might be old, but that's where I am now and to me success is mature by your actions and the levels of humility that you could have while you navigate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other thing I wanted to ask you about is I wanted to ask you about your horses.
Speaker 3:Well, as you heard, since I was a child I've been involved in I had whoever have horses or been around horses, they know that this is sort of like a bug you love them or you don't, or you can love them halfway, but when you have that bug it's something that you, it's your spirit that connects. So I would say that I have a passion for horses and we have a very unique breed in Puerto Rico. I recall as a child I escaped from the baseball game again. I didn't want to be in the zone, so I played bad on purpose so I could go to the, or I took a bathroom break and then don't come back because near where I played baseball was a place where they were racing and showing Paso Fino horses.
Speaker 3:Paso Fino means fine gate and it's an endemic horse. It's one of the oldest breeds in America, to not say the oldest. It was a product of the horses that came with the colonizers and the Puerto Rican people adopted and it became a symbol of their own identity and it has been like that for more than 300 years, to the extreme that today other countries have adopted the name and have stole the name and our population of horses have declined. So I've been breeding these horses as a preservation major and for more than 40 years now. So I have some bloodlines that nobody had and I have all spread out in different parts of the US and Puerto Rico. I don't make money again from it, but at some point what matters to me is that the breed is preserved.
Speaker 3:They're beautiful horses, they're quite elegant, they're not giant or big, which means less poop to clean and less food to buy, so the impact on the environment is less than any other bigger horses. However, they are unique in the sense that they have a very natural gate that they transfer to the offspring. That is very smooth. You don't have to post or mount. It's best horse for people with backaches or ineaches with hips and that love to ride. They have been recognized as a unique breed for many years and it's in the list of endangered breeds of horses. There's only around they say 2500, but that was a census that was done in 1996 and the numbers have declined.
Speaker 3:I know the numbers because I did that census when I was younger. That was part of my job before I moved here. We brought these horses to Canada. The government made that initiative and that's where I met my partner.
Speaker 3:To me, horses have been my healing spirit and it's interesting enough, when I was in school, all the awards that I got in sculpture or mostly sculpture, which is interesting because I started my practice as a sculptor Then I moved to photograph, then I moved to graphic design and now I do installation and do a lot of other things. The only awards that I have won in art has been horses. That's a good connection. It is a very good connection. At the time I didn't have them and now I have them. I have exhibited and I have made some paintings of horses and I have sold some of that work.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to find a way that I can incorporate a live horse to a performance without people questioning the capacity or the ability of protecting the breed without using it or abusing it. When you transport a horse, that gives a lot of stress. There are a lot of things that I know and limit me. I own a farm with my partner and a friend of ours. Then we have a beautiful land that we don't own. We. Technically, the title is under our name, the bank owns it and we are the stewards of the land. I don't think anybody owns anything. When you die you don't take anything, but in this earthy life we have to follow some of those processes in order to have the opportunity to have the stewardship. This is a very special land and when we look for property we found it in Butterford.
Speaker 3:I know people say actually it's not Butterford, it's five minutes out of Butterford, in the town of Butter River, which is very small. There are two rivers that go through it. You are familiar with the area. It's one of the most nice and prettiest places in Saskatchewan. There are four places that I really like in Saskatchewan. One of them is the Cuppel Valley. I think it's stunning. The other one is Cyprus Hills the north, of course, and that valley in Butterford, which is interesting because many times it has been advertised as the crime capital of Canada and it's just Prince Albert overs. They just debate which one is first, but the city has much to offer and I see the potential of it and I just see how a lot of people that are around that land, haven't connected to it and they don't even know that that was the capital of the Northwest Territories.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:Alberta was part of it. It was a long territory and that was the capital. So if you put it in context Saskatchewan, alberta and Northwest Territories the capital city was just right there in Badafort. There's for Badafort, there there's a lot of potential in that zone and I think Canadians sometimes don't know their own story. They don't connect to their story because they're distracted by pleasure, they're distracted by comfort, they're distracted by peace and the open space that they don't connect to the land except indigenous people of course.
Speaker 3:And that's one of the things that I appreciate about indigenous people and their connection to the land, and that land is there, we are there, it's my sanctuary, and I'm perhaps thinking that it might be an opportunity to make the land, as an artist from Alberta did, to protect it. For the land, the oil fields, van der hauzen I'm sorry with names, but I know that there was an artist that talked about how he made his land a work. That is art, so, and there's another, but this is in indigenous land and the relationship with the land is different. There's an artist, and it happened in Alberta, but there's nothing like that In Saskatchewan. I understand that Roberta is working on something like that with the Métis Nation and at some point we are surrounded by indigenous communities there. We just have the stewardship at the moment, and it's the sacred place for the Paso Finos, when they're extinct everywhere else, which they are preserved here, even if there's 20 and that's all is left. That's my goal.
Speaker 3:I hope the extreme doesn't get there, but the horses get mixed, get crossed, and humans have ideologies that sometimes conflict with nature, and these horses have become, as I said, the identity of the whole community and it got stolen and it reflects the identity of my people in the land that we have never been independent since colonization. We were independent until 1492, november 19. That was the day that colonization started and it has never ended. Yes, there has been some exchange in culture. We got some Western education, we got a lot of things, but we lost a lot of our own identity, some rituals that we had, like the Kauhova, and also the connection with the medicine, the plants and all the import that have affected the land. And it has happened. In the 1950s we exported these horses all over the world. They were just riding them in the Bologne Park in France, in that big, major plus park that is in the middle of Paris, and then now people think that is a different horse because the Americans created a new breed and the Colombians market in theirs with the as a pacifino horse using the drug money. So then there's a lot of intentional abuse that have occurred to the breed and it's the same.
Speaker 3:I made the translation to what is happening to the people that knows them. And I'm away from my hometown. I love Saskatoon and, as I said, I'm homeless because when I go back they think that I've been away so long, even though I go every year. My mother still lives there. I have tights there. I have some horses there. I have a lot of friends there. I have art that is in some galleries there. Still, I'm a foreigner there. I abandoned them in the moment that they needed. And when do I come back? And I contribute and I volunteer and I do a lot of things for free online. It's not enough. And here is the same. That is not enough. It's never enough. So I'm tired, so I don't need to show up anything. I don't need to be validated. I just have to do and be who I have to be, and that's enough for me. And that's the success that I am looking and I want to achieve it and I am, but just the fact of not giving a shit.
Speaker 2:I think that's a really great place to leave it. Thank you for our conversation today.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:It's been really nice to chat with you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for the opportunity and all you do for the Arts Alliance and the arts community in the province, and your own art. Don't forget to do it.
Speaker 2:That's for sure. I guess that was the one thing we didn't even put into this. You're currently serving on our board of directors as well. We didn't even touch on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, and I'm also sitting on the National Board of Carfax and the public art network.
Speaker 3:I created it in the works of Canada. So I come from a family of strong women, that they were dedicated to community and I was reflecting on that and when I'm not doing those things, I don't feel good. So, yes, I know it's a lot, and people say where did you make time? Well, I don't go out. I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't do drugs. I only do my art, do my horses, and just relate to people that I want to relate. If I don't want to relate, you won't see me, just to be seen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, prioritizing yeah absolutely, and buying online because I don't like big crowds of people, yeah, for sure, awesome Thanks, alejandro.
Speaker 1:Welcome. The next episode of Arts Everywhere is coming soon, so keep checking the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance website and their social media pages for more information and if you're listening to the podcast through your favorite podcasting app, don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss a single episode. The Arts Everywhere theme music is composed by Saskatchewan musician Patrick Moon Bird, dancing to lo-fi from his album entitled 2021. Check out the show notes for links to Patrick's music. The Saskatchewan Arts Alliance would like to thank our funders, saskculture and Saskart, both of whom benefit from lottery ticket sales through Sask lauderies. Proceeds from Sask lauderies fund cultural organizations all across the province, and we wouldn't be able to do the work we do without your support. See you next time.
