About the Exhibition
Yanira Castro
Revenge Score: An Abbreviation of the Treaty of Paris 1898
Designed to the specs of the U.S. Government Publishing Office Style Manual, this performance score “for americans and computers to perform” is printed on beach towels as official state documents and presented in 21c’s Gallery 3 conference room.
The Revenge Score is a part of Yanira Castro’s I came here to weep project – a multimodal, interactive project enacted by the public. It is made up of participatory scores with corresponding materials and environments that examine U.S. territorial possession through the redaction, deconstruction and performance of absurdist colonial texts. Castro is developing this project as an iterative platform that investigates the complex relations of citizenship vis-à-vis Borikén (Puerto Rico) and the United States. In 2023, Castro premiered the first iteration that focuses on The Treaty of Paris 1898 via which the U.S. took possession of Spanish colonies including Puerto Rico.
I came here to weep proposes audience assembly, transmission, and revenge and invites the public into multiple forms of witnessing and activating the work.
Yanira Castro (she/ella) is a Puerto Rican interdisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY) working at the intersection of communal practices, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects that center collective action in works activated and performed by the public. Since 2009, she’s created and performed with a team of collaborators as a canary torsi (https://www.acanarytorsi.org/) and has developed over fifteen projects that have been recognized with national awards, commissions and residency support.
Her most recent work, a public art project during the 2024 election, Exorcism = Liberation, utilized campaign materials (stickers, pins, lawn signs, banners and large scale posters) to proliferate–across New York City, Chicago, and the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts–slogans and QR codes that led to immersive sonic experiences calling for mutual liberation.
