curar lo roto, Lucia Vidales
VISITING HOURS
General population
But you’re not.
Not anymore
Now you are an inmate of the state of California
A transformation lauded as reformation
With eight numbers instead of a name
All objects except for a valid form of ID must be placed in the lockers*
Valid form of ID
Whose? Yours or mine? You only have a number now. Did the guards bother to ask you
who
you are/were/will/want to be?
Please proceed to area A
Proceed to area B
Last name, first name
Inmate number
Inmate number
I
N
M
A
T
E
I
N
M
A
T
E
N
U
M
B
E
R
I
N
M
A
T
E
N
U
M
B
E
R
N
U
M
B
E
R
Visitors and inmates are being monitored and recorded at all times
Visitor | inmate
Sit in area C and wait
Until Until Until UNTIL
Go through the doors and
walk through that oh-so-carefully constructed path. I wonder who built it? What
security measures had to
be planned be written be voted on be enacted
to build this path?
Look at it
it even c u r v e s through the
green, green grass around
One tree, empty of leaves, reaching up in the air
Past the concrete walls
WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALL
And the path coils around
You could almost but-not-quite forget that
Visitors and inmates are being monitored and recorded at all times
Almost
All visiting times are subject to change without notice.
Each visit will last thirty minutes
Visitors shall proceed to their assigned seat and remain there until the inmate
Arrives.
More walls separate
WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALLS WALL
Mother
Father
Brother
Sister
Nuclear family gone nuclear
Familial ties split by these walls
They call the penal code
We’re praying for you.
Dios sabe.
Hey, how are you?
Not-yet-mother
She smiles as she stands so you can see the growing curve that holds your child
But you won’t get to be with her
When she moves from not-yet to mother
Glass walls scream a reminder there is a division between
Visitor | inmate
Please don’t kiss the glass. You are not the only one.
B.R. loves C.L
Walls painted over. Again and again.
Because B.R loves C.L and C.L loves B.R. and B.R. will continue loving C.L.
despite/in spite
this glass
You can’t keep doing this, Mom doesn’t want to see you like this.
Did you get the money I put in your account?
Silence
Silence
He is still there. And will be there.
Today
And Tomorrow
And Tomorrow
dial tone
Visitors who are disruptive or interfere with the normal operations of the facility
are subject to removal from the facility and/or arrest.
**Within five years of release, about three-quarters of released prisoners are rearrested.
dial tone
* rules for visitors of the Theo Lacy maximum security Facility in Orange, California
**information from Orange County sheriff’s department website
ANNY L. MOGOLLÓN
Anny L. Mogollón is an emerging Latinx writer, visual artist, and scholar. After graduating with her B.A. in Comparative Literature and English from UCLA, Anny taught in Japan for about five years before returning to California to pursue her graduate studies. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in literature with emphases in critical race and ethnic studies and feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Anny is the proud daughter of Peruvian immigrants and her writing is shaped by this fact. Both her creative and academic work typically features domestic workers and reflects on issues of racial injustice, poverty, and family dynamics. Anny enjoys making time for poetry readings, naps, and one spoiled little cockatiel.
LUCIA VIDALES
Lucia Vidales lives and works in México City. Recent solo exhibitions include: To cool the blue at Taka Ishii Gallery (Tokyo, 2020), Noche durante el día, Sala Gam, Galería de Arte Mexicano (México, 2019-2020), Come as you are, House of Deslave (Tijuana, 2019) and Cuerpo de esta sombra, Galería Alterna (2018), El tiempo que nos pudrirá, Edison 137 (2017), Perros cien veces perros, LADRÓN Galería (2017), Brlbrlbrlbrlbrlbrl, Bikini Wax (2017) in México City. Recent group exhibitions include: Murales para un cubo blanco, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (México City, 2019), Princesses des villes, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2018); Naturally, Lulu (México City, 2018); Tú de mí, yo de ti, Museo de la Ciudad de México; Terra Preta, Proxyco, New York, Cold pleasure, warm touch, Peana (Monterrey, 2018), El cordon umbilical retiniano, ESPAC, México City; Tiger poems and songs for Hurricanes, Galería Travesía 4, Guadalajara, Terror en lo profundo, Human Resources (Los Angeles, 2018).
About the Artwork
Curar lo roto / oil, acrylic and encaustic on fabric / 2018 / 120 x 100cm
My work imagines painting as a sculptural extension. It shares thought operations, where signs of the living and the dead appear, not just as fragments that make the assertation of liquids, extremities and bodily organs possible but also transform these into painted phenomena. I am interested in the complicity between materials and the construction of humor, and in how it fuses trauma, tragedy and survival. Blending the world of the living, afresh with a prior world, one inhabited by past and present beings and fictions. Their shared mission being a new world order where remaining wounds heal. The weight of my artwork is also the weight of the history of these disciplines and of the effort and traditions it engages as a recognizable form of care.