…y otra cosa es otra cosa. (2021)
In 2021, I embarked on a deeply meditative performance that traced the contours of my own identity, a journey through the layers of self that are imposed, inherited, and intentionally chosen. As I laid my personal items on the ground, one by one, I echoed the quiet, deliberate gestures of María Teresa Hincapié’s Una cosa es una cosa (1990), a piece that had deeply resonated with me. Thirty-one years after her original performance, I found myself in dialogue with her work, responding with …y otra cosa es otra cosa (2021), an answer to the unspoken ellipsis in the Colombian adage she invoked.
During this performance, I reflected on existential questions of identity formation and cultural self-perception. I explored the ontological dimensions of being a Latin American, a Colombian woman, and an artist, critically examining the socio-political constructs that shape these identities . Additionally, I interrogated the phenomenology of migration, considering how the experience of displacement and cultural hybridity influences one’s sense of self and artistic expression. Each object became a marker of a role I had played or had been assigned, an emblem of my origins and the identity I continue to craft.
The performance became not just a reflection of the past, but an active, living process—one where I could reclaim and redefine the narrative of my own self, sinking into the profound complexity of what it means to be both rooted and fluid, to carry the weight of history while choosing, piece by piece, how to move forward.
Eliana Araque 