JOIRI MINAYA, THE CLOAKING SERIES
“The Cloaking series challenges the presence of colonial statues in urban spaces, using colorful spandex fabric to conceal and simultaneously bring attention to these monuments, questioning which narratives get memorialized and which are omitted.
The fabric have patterns designed by the artist featuring plants used in Native American, Black and Afro-Caribbean traditions as metaphors of resistance: plants with a poison-healing or poison-defense duality, or used for purging, cleansing, casting evil spirits away or protection.
Using a soft, gendered material like spandex to wrap solid, hard, serious phallic bronze statues results in playful and amorphous silhouettes, Minaya further subverts the patriarchal and authoritarian visual codes of these monuments.
While institutional support for permits and coordination has been instrumental for this series (when it has worked out), some interventions have also happened without much support, or in spite of not getting a permit. The series started with a proposal that wasn't approved (see the Bahamas proposal below). In that occasion, postcards with a montage of the proposal were printed, and the exhibitions viewers were invited to share their thoughts through them. This gesture has been replicated in several subsequent proposals and exhibitions after that initial instance, prompting conversations about monuments and resistance beyond the US and the Caribbean, in places like New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Taiwan, Turkey or China.” - Joiri Minaya