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print this pageOn Becoming: Decolonizing Perspectives through Performance and Self Portraiture
Juliana Rico
Thursday, March 19 - 2:00PM to 3:00PM
Agusta
Identity, representation, and belonging are themes that are at the core of Juliana Rico's art practice. Raised without authentic reflections of her intersecting identities, Rico grew up navigating the world as "the other" — an introverted, queer, full-bodied woman of color and a third-generation Mexican-American, shaped by a family history of assimilation and survival. Taught to blend in, embrace, and aspire towards Eurocentric ideals to succeed, she was left feeling like an outsider and imposter in most spaces.
The performance-for-camera works Rico will present in On Becoming explore the body as a vessel for radical self-healing and liberation from systems of oppression. Centering decolonial praxis, she explores her identity through investigation, confrontation and unlearning of colonial practices and perspectives. Utilizing self-portraiture and performance, Rico uses her body as a vessel to confront, unlearn, and heal from internalized colonialist ideals that once told her she was not enough.
Rico's practice exists at the intersection of personal storytelling and social critique — offering space to question, confront, and imagine beyond colonial and patriarchal frameworks toward a more honest, expansive view of identity. Her practice reclaims agency and authentic perspectives of herself and her communities while serving as an act of resistance and healing.
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Juliana Rico
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