Arrayanos is the latest creation by interdisciplinary artist Charo Oquet, summarising sections of research which expand over 20 years of her work. Oquet, who lived and worked in Auckland from 1982-1986, winning 3 times the prestigious QE II Arts Council of N.Z. Artist Fellowship Award, works on the cusp between the visual and the performing arts, displacing viewer expectations by tweaking the presentation codes of performance and installation.Her work is found in the permanent collections of the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, (CAAM); Las Palmas, Spain; New Zealand National Museum, Wellington, N.Z.; Govett-Brewter Art Gallery, New Zealand; and the Modern Art Museum of Dominican Republic, among others.
After leaving Auckland, Charo Oquet eventually settled in Miami where she has remained for 27 years. There, her work as a creator exists in relation to her life as an activist. This led her to founding the “Miami Arts Collaborative” in 2003, which later became the non-profit organisation, Edge Zones. Now in its 20th season, Edge Zones has presented work by hundreds of artists from Miami, Florida, the Caribbean, and elsewhere, with a special emphasis on supporting the Dominican community in Miami, and forging connections between Miami and the Caribbean.In 2016 Edge Zones continued to produce year-round programming focusing on bringing the public diverse programming that included 17 national, international, and local young LTGB and LatineX artists pushing the barriers of performance art with our PerforMIA Festival.
In Arrayanos, Oquet positions anthropological and social performative readings to create a work that enters into dialogue with the stories of her life as an artist has and the place she takes to work on and intervene. The city of Miami as a hub of crosses and exchanges gives her the opportunity to address multiple diasporas that live in it, Dominicans, Haitians, Puerto Ricans, African-Americans.
The work has been made possible through the generous support of The MAP Fund, a program of Creative Capital, primarily supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funds come from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and a grant from the National Performance Network’s Performing America’s Program. Lead funding of the national performance network performing America’s program is provided by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. It is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners.
Saturday 27 May @ Audio Foundation, 4.00pm
Free