Coco Fusco

These are unsettling times for immigrants around the world. Borders are being crossed, cultures are clashing and national identities are being challenged in the process. As more and more refugees and immigrants make new homes in foreign lands, they often face the tenuous task of trying to assimilate while preserving traditions. The natural result can be difficult, but for one Columbia professor, artistic expression might help along the way.

Coco Fusco, associate professor in the School of Visual Arts, explores such tensions between the Catalan and Spanish cultures in Barcelona, Spain, in her latest video installation, "Els Segadors." Coinciding with Latino Heritage Month, Columbia's Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity sponsored an Oct. 4 viewing of "Els Segadors" in Hamilton Hall where Fusco, a native New Yorker and internationally acclaimed artist, discussed the project.

"In Barcelona, identity tends to be organized around language as opposed to race like it is here in the U.S.," Fusco said. Along with other cities in Europe, Barcelona has been experiencing demographic changes, declining birthrates among Spaniards and growing immigration from Africa. Consequently, anxieties are rising regarding the immigration issue, evidenced especially when the Spanish press recently began debating whether the national hymn of Catalunya entitled, "Els Segadors" should be taught in public schools. The native culture of Catalan has survived centuries of Spanish dominance to emerge today as an elite cultural group in Barcelona.

Fusco saw the tension as an opportunity to explore the artistic and cultural implications in a way that would make sense to local residents: by creating a light-hearted video around the national song.

Fusco then placed four advertisements in Spanish and Catalan newspapers throughout Barcelona, asking for actors and actresses who could sing traditional Catalan and who would be interested in performing in an American film. Over 75 people applied, and Fusco selected 25 local actors from various backgrounds to come to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona where her crew was filming. She then asked each actor to sing the hymn on camera, to express his or her unique interpretation of it.

"The film was the audition," Fusco said. "I was looking for people who considered themselves Catalan and who would be willing to display that sense of identity before a camera." What happened was a twenty-minute video fusion of differing but engaging perspectives on culture, identity, language, and performance. Half of the video is in black and white; the film crew—including Fusco herself—makes appearances within the video, and a frame and microphone created the impression of a 'film within the film.'

"Els Segadors" will premiere at the Bojimans Museum in Rotterdam in December 2001 as part of the "Unpacking Europe" exhibition sponsored by Rotterdam European Cultural Capital 2001, who also commissioned the work. It will then be screened at the Project Rooms in Madrid's ARCO Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona.

In addition to "Els Segadors," Fusco's new book, "The Bodies that Were Not Ours and Other Writings" (Routledge) will be released this month. She is currently curating a comprehensive exhibition on racial taxonomy in American photography for the International Center for Photography that will open at the end of next year. Her new play, "The Incredible Disappearing Woman," commissioned by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, will begin an international tour in 2002.