"How do people collect? These pieces that people have
in their homes are so valuable to them, and somehow all
of a sudden they lose them all due to a dispossession, or
lose them all to fire, stolen..."
"...The images don't necessarily come to me right away.
I don't think of images. I am thinking of events and of
circum-stances more than anything else."
"What in a general public will be the least important
event in their life becomes a significant work of art that
has tremendous resonance in a larger public."
"I feel that every time I create a work of art I'm
trying to say something in order to release that core, in
order to let that core move through our community and allow
the people to talk and reflect back on what I have to say."
How did the work "Home Visits"
come about? Could you describe your process?
OSORIO:
"Home Visit" came about as I
started to notice that it's not enough for the work to be
in a museum, or to be in a storefront. And also when I start
thinking about possessions, about collectors—what does
that mean? How do people collect? These pieces that people
have in their homes are so valuable to them, and somehow all
of a sudden they lose them all due to a dispossession, or
lose them all to fire, stolen, or whatever occasion or event
might have occurred. And so then I'm starting to worry about
things like that. And I'm thinking that people in Venezuela
just had tremendous floods and they've lost families, and
I start thinking of images of camps full of children that
don't know where their parents have gone or whatever happened
to them. Then I think of Bosnia and I think of Rwanda, and
I think about how in some places there's so much, and all
of a sudden you just lose it all overnight and you have to
move on.
And so I think of ways of connecting, and how my work can
connect to those experiences, but also to the idea of displacement,
and the idea of how you move from one place to another. And
the images don't necessarily come to me right away. I don't
think of images. I am thinking of events and of circumstances
more than anything else. And then in "Home Visit" I started
to think, "Well, you know, what if I lose it all? Whatever
happens to me? What could happen to me?" It's a starting point
to look at how any specific population deals with these issues.
And I decided that I wanted to work with someone who had just
lost it all somehow. I got in touch with a group in Philadelphia.
"Home Visit" is my first piece in my new home, Philadelphia.
And I started to talk to the people in Congreso, which is
an organization, a Latino organization in Philadelphia, about
the possibility of meeting someone who had just lost it all.
I was intrigued by the idea that I've gained so much, yet
the possibility of losing it all overnight.
And they connected me with this mother and her two daughters;
her name is Tina. We started to talk with the understanding
that at some point I will create a work of art in the process
of it. But that I will involve them, the three of them, in
the process of it. And we sat for about a month, talking.
I would occasionally call them up and show up at their home,
and we will talk about that until I felt that it was okay
to start talking about the event, when the fire occurred.
They lost everything in a fire. And we talked about that.
And we cried together. It's a lot of tears in my work I realized.
And then I thought, "Well, why don't I recreate that home?
Why don't we go back to the event and do kind of a drill?"
And they were willing, scared. I was scared. And we sat and
remembered, in the dining room—we sat and I placed the
the objects in the house with all the different objects that
go in the house. And I told them, "You'll have two minutes
to walk out the door in that little house, what will you take
with you?" And then they started grabbing different objects.
"And well if I give you about an hour and a half, what would
you do? You have to pile them up, to make sure that you secure
them." So they piled them up.
But little stories, the deepest story started to come out
in the process of it. And that's when I started hearing little
by little about the different moments and the circumstances
of what was lost, and I included that in the work. The resin,
which looks like that block, that plastic block around the
home—I was told that it was in the middle of winter when
it happened. So when the firemen came in, everything turned
into ice. It froze, and I thought that was a metaphor:
to freeze our possessions, to hold our possessions, and that's
what that image comes out of. The only thing that the mother
can think of was saving the children, so then she's outside
with the children. I use photography in my work as a way of
balancing things off. So I started to do research for this
piece and I found a photograph from the turn of the century.
And this piece was created in the year 2000, so it was also
the turn of another century. And I used both photographs,
the one created in an 1899-1900 and the one 1999-2000, and
I placed them together, of a very familiar circumstance, or
a very similar circumstance that had happened. There is a
woman in a sugar cane plantation, and there is Tina in Philadelphia,
and I placed them both together.
I was also looking for a home, so I placed myself on the roof.
And there's a lot of details, personal details that are related
to it. I think the very personal becomes universal in that
sense, because I think that the concept,
the ideas, the intentions that I have have are a universal
language and connect to many different people at many different
levels. And that's how I come to create work from the very
specific. What in a general public will be the least important
event in their life becomes a significant work of art that
has tremendous resonance in a larger public.
ART:21:
The story of how the work came
about seems to be such an integral part of the work. Do you
consider yourself a storyteller?
OSORIO:
I don't consider myself a storyteller.
I think of it more as what I have to say. It's almost like
when you think that you have this personal problem, and then
you join a group and then all of a sudden everybody has the
same problem you have and you feel like, "Oh I don't have
a problem then." That's what I think. I think that what I
have to say is important to say, because somehow it demystifies,
dismisses, this whole idea that it's so crucial. But at the
same time, I feel that every time I create a work of art I'm
trying to say something in order to release that core, in
order to let that core move through our community and allow
the people to talk and reflect back on what I have to say.
It's not that I'm telling a story; it's that I'm allowing
others to tell their own stories as I come in showing the
work. It's group therapy. (LAUGHS) Just kidding.
ART:21:
Why does the work travel to so
many locations? Is this part of the idea of sharing stories?
OSORIO:
"Home Visits" is rooted
in a very religious tradition in Latin America and Puerto
Rico, in a religious popular tradition of the visiting saint.
When I was a kid, we were visited by the image of a Virgin
of Guadeloupe, sent by the church I'm sure to collect money.
But anyway, sent by the church, and it came to our home, once
every two months. And around that neighborhood, to many of
the different families it just visited, it went from one house
to another.
It was very interesting because, for me, it was a big celebration.
I remember every time the Virgin of Guadeloupe came to the
home it was be a big celebration, in the sense of finding
a place for it to be. The lady who brought it, who was in
charge of moving it from one place to another, had a great
conversation with my mother. They would have coffee and I
would be drinking juice. A big celebration in a sense of high
energy, not a big celebration of an opening, in a sense, but
of high energy. And that Virgin went from one home to another
for as much as I can remember. I was probably 25, and it was
still going from one place to another. And I thought, "What
about the same thing with contemporary
art? Why can't contemporary art visit one home after the
other for the week?" And, I was interested in restoring faith
at some point. I felt that somehow that moving to Philadelphia,
the community in Philadelphia, I needed it to restore my faith.
Somehow coming to terms with the idea of living in a place
for 25 years—I've been in New York City and then I just
moved to Philadelphia—I needed to somehow believe that
it was going to be okay. And what a clever way to do it...(LAUGHS)...to
have "Home Visit" going from one home to another, and visiting
different places and getting to know all the people. And I
just thought, "Well, this is the right thing to do." And all
of a sudden I just realized maybe the best thing to do is
to do it nationally.
If I wanted to challenge myself, the greatest challenge will
be to go from one state to another state. And that's how it
came to be a piece that doesn't stay in one place. It's created
in different levels. One level is about losing your immediate
possessions. On another level it's about restoring faith,
which is what happens immediately after you lose something.
And simultaneously, it's about possessing contemporary art,
and how a work of contemporary art can take a major space
in your home, and going back to the studies that I've mentioned
before, at a very high level, because it's on a stand, it
really radiates and has a prime, aerial space in your living
room or dining room, wherever you want to place it. And at
the same time, you'll have the communication. It's about welcoming,
but also about saying good-bye. And it's about the connection
that you have to the work of contemporary art; as it comes
to your home, you welcome it, you live with it for a week,
and then you have to move it on, in faith, that it will be
taken well care of wherever it goes.
