In conversation with Virginia Pérez-Ratton and Tamara Díaz Bringas

Virginia Pérez-Ratton and Tamara Díaz Bringas are the co-curators of Doubtful Strait, an international art event, in San José, Costa Rica in 2007.

Cecilia Nuín: Would you please explain the exhibition’s title Doubtful Strait?

Tamara Díaz Bringas: The title came from the misunderstanding of the Spaniards looking for the route to the Indies, and it also refers to Central America as a doubtful strait which they never found. Then, the inter-oceanic channel issue has been weighting in our history. An episode has to do with the exhibition Noticias del Filibustero (News of the Filibuster), and currently with the issue of the widening of the channel. Also, we were interested in the title’s metaphorical sense as a point of connection to art from different generations and sensibilities, and to artists, architects, and anthropologists from all over the world. We linked the idea of Central America connecting as an isthmus. We wanted to pose a doubt of a more conected contemporary world, but at the same time exist more borders, more surveillance --more control.

CN: The inter-oceanic channel is an interesting perspective.

Virginia Pérez-Ratton: The channel fulfilled the Conquistadors’ expectations. Finally, it became man-made.

CN: I would like you to talk about how this group of exhibitions was curated.

VPR: Tamara and I worked together the whole exhibition. We had historic references framing the exhibit. On the one hand, we have two monographic exhibits. We decided to have Juan Downey’s retrospective, a Chilean artist who was unknown in Costa Rica, in spite of being internationally renown, and Margarita Azurdia, a Guatemalan. She worked in a way that anticipated history. Four exhibitions were articulated with the idea of Limites (Limits) as an axis across the whole exhibit. Even-though, we deal with filibusterism, the urban, and exchange. Everything is marked by a type of limit or no limit.

TDB: This is a space for the artists from Central America to be in dialogue with the local audience. We also thought of the idea of limit in art as a way of thinking, limits like insanity, fear, political, and institutional. This would resonate with a very flexible format in shows like Tráficos (Traffic) which deals limits negotiated in public space. It is about interventions in public spaces, and working with specific communities. Then, Rutas Intangibles (Intangible Routes) enters in dialogue, through drawings, with spatial limit.

CN: By the way of Limits, how can one connect the works Corresponding Lines by Liliana Porter, and Esrnesto Salmeron’s Ellos no son pobres?1

VPR: Something which characterizes Liliana Porter’s work is a constant questioning of the different levels of reality. The material level, the representation of a thing in a photograph, a print, or a drawing, through the object, and her imagination. This is to summarize her practice which is very complex. She also works on the idea of returning. In this case is the return home and to safety which many times is impossible or virtual. In Ernesto’s case, his work also deals with different levels of reality, because we see a video with children happily bathing in a river. Their reality is shouting, and pure joy in a pond in a tropical river. However, that is why is called They are not poor, wealth is in another place. A level that is not material wealth which to many people means that they are poor because they do not have a swim suit, and they are bathing there, and not in a pool. These are different levels of reality depending one’s point of view. Obviously, we make these connections based on the work presented. We did not know when we invited Liliana and Ernesto which works they were going to propose, but we had the intuition that they could work together. Similarly, the work Untitled by Shilpa Gupta speaks of the impossibility of dividing the sky --poetic, and nostalgic at once. Maybe, the only total thing in the world is the sky, which is impossible to divide in two, as is impossible to divide the joy of those children in two things. Part of the intention we had, especially, with Rutas and Limites was to work against the grain. Certain tendencies exist today to work with extremely mediated images which reflect media esthetics-- something that is visually aggressive. We wanted to work in a subtle way where the viewer has to concentrate in the pieces to be able to apprehend them deeply --this demands thought and reflection.

CN: What were you looking for when curating an event such as is Doubtful Strait?

TDB: It has to do with the city of San José becoming the art capital in Iberoamérica, and the initial support that Hivos2 gave to the project. These events have a responsibility with their places, and look for visibility. More than fifty artists came from everywhere, even-though, many did not need to be here to mount their pieces, it was important that they exchanged with each other to create a meeting space --a node.

VPR: I think, we wanted to transcend our own limits. Sometimes, Tamara and I have made exhibitions abroad like the Cuenca Biennial in Ecuador. This exhibition searched to strengthen our infrastructure. What is known at the international level about Costa Rica is TEOR/éTica, and El Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo, and I think that for the participating museums, it was a test to their capacities and spaces which are uneven, but things worked out fine. When one compares it with similar events in other places whether in Shanghai, the United States, or even Brazil, one sees errors and positive outcomes. So, I feel that we are nor better, nor worse than any event of this magnitude anywhere in the world.

CN: What does William Walker’s image means in the exhibit News of the Filibuster?

VPR: In 1855, in the struggle between liberals and conservatives in Nicaragua, the liberals brought William Walker as a mercenary to help them with the conflict. Walker was a Southern general, and a lawyer who spoke several languages. He had the Manifest Destiny as his mission. In reality, Walker’s intention was not to help Nicaraguans, but he was interested in bringing the slavery system to Central America. The Manifest Destiny is a thing the United States have internalized that they are the guides of the world. They are the ones who bring the plans of peace and democracy. Still, today this is absolutely evident with George Bush’s declarations who pretends to be the spiritual guide and an example of democracy. In the Manifest Destiny, it is considered that some people have no capacity to govern themselves. Walker believed that he had to come here to fix things. Then, a military campaign left from Costa Rica ending with Walker’s defeat, his exile, and finally he was executed by a firing squad in Honduras in 1957. The campaign in 1856 was important because it happened in a tumultuous time in history during a cholera epidemic, without a very structured army, and in the background were Cornelius Vanderbilt’s interests, and the route of the Transito3. We wanted with News of the Filibuster to call attention to the complexity of this historic enterprise, and bring it to the present for people to talk about filibusterism, and to reflect on the ways of domination, and intervention that exists today.

CN: With Pan-American ideals as a backdrop how did you extend ties to Latin America?

TDB: In News from the Filibuster for example, Carlos Motta’s work, SOA: Histories in Black and White was a newspaper with the history of US interventions in Latin America.

VPR: The ties are made with the Latin American artists present in all the exhibits. For example, a Central American, and a Chilean head the monographic exhibits. Except, in News from the Filibuster which focuses in Central America, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. The backyard that has suffered the most primal filibusterism. An event that includes a great number of artists, and spaces, and that is not a center of power like Sao Paulo, nor is Havana which has been changing the configuration of the biennial. Definitively, it has marked a new space. Central America has been a sort of no place. A thing kind of disappeared, and little by little, it has taken more space.

CN: It seems that Central America has been put in the map with Doubtful Strait.

VPR: Doubtful Strait has been the culmination of a previous work in an area where circuits have been permeated, and at the same time it has created something original in relation to other regions. For example, MERCOSUR has its biennial, but it does not have the unity that Central America has because the latter is in constant dialogue. Perhaps, it is because MERCOSUR is overpowered by Brazil’s strong presence. This would happen to us if it was Mexico; because it would take a bigger space. Central America has more or less equal countries. It has a colonial past, and it was one whole religious, military, political, and economic region. This gives it a different identity than the Antilles which being islands and having five languages do not have a strong communication. Since the 90’s, Central America is becoming unified.

CN: Could we talk some more about TEOR/éTica?

VPR: TEOR/éTica was founded in 1999 after I left my five year post as director of the Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo, I focused in the area of though production, and in exhibitions of small format. It has grown slowly, and I have been lucky in having a professional team committed with the identity of the project. So, I think that the most important thing that TEOR/éTica has it is the team’s strength. People call us “Los Teoréticos” because, really, whomever becomes a Teorético is a certain kind of person. Some of our objectives have been to investigate, promote, and disseminate the work of Central America and The Caribbean. To begin with we wanted to generate critical thought. Basically, we continue in the same path, on the one hand, we have the exhibitions, publications, seminars, workshops, events, and support to the artists. On the other, the library is open everyday and it has free access, and the center of documentation serves as a resource to many curators who research our archives.

CN: You mentioned a group of Nicaraguans that worked in this project.

TDB: The project is called Canal Central developed by Catalonian artist Antoni Abad. He worked with a group of 22 Nicaraguan immigrants. Each received a cellular phone with an integrated camera. They created their own stories which they posted in the Web. As second phase they promoted the channel in the web site www.zexe.net. Here you find various themes: housing, documents, tradition, and mixed families. They created a character called tico-nica which represents the off-springs already born here. So, they have a mean of unmediated communication without being seen as criminals, or the poor immigrant who is filing for social security. And the beauty is, that the project activated a sense of community. Probably, after four months that the project lasts, supported by Doubtful Strait, they will keep working because they have the web site, the program, the contacts, and they are super stimulated. It had a real effect.

About the curators
Virginia Pérez-Ratton is an artist, curator, and cultural worker. She was the first director of the Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo in Costa Rica. She is the founder and director of TEOR/éTica since 1999, an institution for the study and dissemination of Central American art. She curated several international biennials, and was a member of the jury for the Venice Biennial in 2001. She received the Principe Claus Award in 2002. In 1998, she published Centroamerica y el Caribe: a History in Black and White along with her curatorship for the Sao Paulo biennial.

Tamara Díaz Bringas is an art historian. She graduated from Havana University, and she has an MA in Arts from the University of Costa Rica. She is adjunct curator of TEOR/éTica since 1999, and is coodinator and editor for the Doubtful Strait project. She is an art critic for La Nación newspaper in San José, and she wrote a book about Costa Rican art called En el Trazo de las Constelaciones. She has made multiple curatorships in TEOR/éTica and other venues. She is co-curator with Virginia Pérez-Ratton of Iconofagia, a regional project for the Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador in 2004.

1 trans. They are not poor

2 Hivos, a Dutch organization, is the Humanist Institute for Cooperation with developing countries.

3 At the time, the major route between New York City and San Francisco ran through southern Nicaragua. The Accessory Transit Company [was] controlled by Wall Street tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt. (Wikipedia),

This interview was published by Futuro magazin in March 2008