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Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Seismic Register 2020.02.26.013 (Terremoto, 1986), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.640,960 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Seismic Register 2020.02.28.063, archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,960 -
Rosa Mena Valenzuela was named by artist and first Salvadoran gallerist Julia Díaz as a leading woman artist in El Salvador in the 1984 Lucy Lippard recording labeled “unidentified Salvadoran artists,” that I found in the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.
In this photograph, I join my late mother Janine's wedding dress, Rosa Mena’s painting, "The Bride," and a recent photograph of a seismic register to map personal and collective history in a new meeting ground for the future.La novia (Homage, Rosa Mena Valenzuela), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,955 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Pulsante deseo / Self-Portrait (Homage, Carlos Cañas), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,960 -
The seismograph revealed a sort of ‘latent’ image of a volcano with an apparent sphere spewing out of its crater. It first reminded me of my own 1996 photograph of the Volcán de Izalco with Arabic calligraphy that I had made to commemorate my Palestinian family’s migration to El Salvador.
But I also remembered the photograph that my father, Antonio Hasbun Z. had made of artist Julio Sequeira coming out of the rubble of the Ruben Darío building that collapsed while Julio was getting a haircut inside, during the 1986 earthquake. Julio’s abstract, cosmic works then became the answer, and I juxtaposed one of his paintings next to the volcanic apparition in the register.Réplicas (Homage, Julio Sequeira), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,483 -
My first photographs, in El Salvador's early 1980s, were of children in the streets, in refugee camps, or playing on black volcanic sand. I remembered artist Luis Lazo's words: “Art was a way of resistance against the hostile and negative forces of death. It’s when art can change society.”Seismic Register 2020.02.28.048 (Niño/17-III-83), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,960 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Seismic Register 2020.02.27.035 (1986), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,960 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Mujer y anturio (Homage, Carlos Cañas), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,960 -
The seismograms surprised me with their ghostly images, apparitions encapsulated within.Seismic Register 2020.02.26.091 (Aparición), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,960 -
"No tremors registered." A faulty instrument that failed to record the seismic vibrations.
Was there really, no movement at all? Can we repair misrepresentation and erasure?No registra temblor (Homage, Armando Campos), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1431,960 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Muchacha para un nuevo milenio, (Homage, Chubasco), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,960 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Seismic Register 2020.02.26.154 (Peace, January 1992), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 20201440,960 -
Janine Janowski, director of Galería el laberinto considered Rosa Mena Valenzuela a singular phenomenon in the visual arts landscape of El Salvador.
Janowski wrote: “Realizing her utopia, [Rosa Mena] turns exoticism inside out, where those considered exotic by Europeans are now the protagonists” of her paintings.Exotismo al revés (Homage, Rosa Mena Valenzuela and Janine Janowski), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1440,957 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Seismic Register 2020.02.28.006 (Aparición: Mother and Child, 1983), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1174,960 -
These photographs carry the pulses of a particular time and place, and like our own heartbeats, can guide us in our journey if we pay attention to their rhythm.Corazón (Homage, Luis Lazo), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.640,960 -
Is it possible to trace our journey through a visual record of the land’s pulses? Can we metaphorically mark our personal and cultural legacies onto the land and in the process make it our terruño and diasporic homeland?
Pulse: New Cultural Registers is a visual registry for the future, reframing the cultural legacy of El Salvador during the 1980s and 90s using personal and historical archives from a diasporic vantage point. It imprints the rescued archive of the renowned Galería el laberinto --an epicenter of cultural activity during the Salvadoran civil war-- along with my own photographic archive of the time onto the national seismographic record of El Salvador.
Pulse encapsulates issues of social justice, representation and solidarity that are at stake in the art world and in society. Transnational dialogue and decolonial visual representations are urgent. With 2.3 million Salvadorans living in the United States, we are the 3rd largest Latinx population, often vilified by reductive, dehumanizing narratives of war, violence, and migratory “illegality.”
To repair this, I created Pulse. The seismograms document the movements of the earth in El Salvador at specific points in time. Likewise, artists during the civil war replied with their art to the earth-shaking events of the same period. Melding these two forms of response, seismic and artistic reveals the land as terruño, and makes the voices and sensibilities of the artists reverberate across time and space, so they can be heard and seen both in El Salvador and in the diaspora.
I challenge erasure, invisibility, prejudice, and established canons and territories, paying tribute to my late mother Janine Janowski and her legacy as founding director of Galería el laberinto, and to the artists who worked with the gallery during such difficult times. Pulse then, transforms the land into a fully lived and witnessed Thirdspace of memory and art, while mapping personal and collective history into a new meeting ground for a more hopeful, nuanced, dignified, and restorative future.Seismic Register 2020.02.28.006 (Aparición: Body,1983), archival pigments on Canson Edition Etching Rag or on anodized aluminum plates, 2020.1172,960
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