HABITUS, Young Arts Gallery (on view April 2024)

DE LA TIERRA QUEMADA NACIMOS (FROM THE SCORCHED EARTH WE ARE BORN)

Digital Illustration, Image transfer on Watercolor paper, Wood

7’5” x 4’8”

2024

De la Tierra Quemada Nacimos is a triptych that explores the power of consecration through Evangelical iconography via a Queer ecological lens. The context of this piece draws from South Florida’s physical landscapes and effects of the climate crisis. This piece invokes the positionality of consecration within cultural hierarchy through a triptych format, as well as through dynamic composition.

Within the geopolitical framework of Miami, a city grappling with the intersections of housing and climate crises, this imperative becomes more acute as sea levels rise. Returning land sovereignty to indigenous peoples, following indigenous practices of reciprocity, and moving away from the extractive practices of capitalism are the only way forward. The title of the piece speaks to those who traverse scorched earth – the marginalized, stewards of the land, and those disproportionately impacted by the climate crisis, particularly in the Global South.

Ultimately, De La Tierra Quemada Nacimos aims to reframe and posit Queer and Trans bodies as sacred—as well as underwrite the inherence of our relationship to the earth. This perspective serves to uplift queer existence, which continues to be attacked under Florida’s current administration.