Karma Points

Mexico Masks/Rituals

Photographs by Phyllis Galembo Introduction by Sergio Rodríguez-Blanco  Text by George Otis

Radius Books, Santa Fe 2019, 196 pages,120 color images,  Co-published with D.A.P., ISBN: 9781942185574

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Since 1985, photographer Phyllis Galembo has traveled extensively to photograph sites of ritual dress in Africa and the Americas. In her latest body of work, collected in this new publication, Galembo turns to Mexico, where she captures cultural performances with a subterranean political edge. Using a direct, unaffected portrait style, Galembo captures her subjects informally posed but often strikingly attired in traditional or ritualistic dress.

Masking is a complex tradition in which the participants transcend the physical world and enter the spiritual realm. Masks, costumes and body paint transform the human body and encode a rich range of political, artistic, theatrical, social and religious meanings on the body. In her vibrant color photographs, Galembo highlights the artistry of the performers, how they use materials from their immediate environment to morph into a fantastical representation of themselves and an idealized vision of a mythical figure. In a gorgeous, fascinating photographic survey of Mexico’s masking practices, Galembo captures her subjects suspended between past, present and future, with their religious, political and cultural affiliations—their personal and collective identifications—displayed on their bodies.

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“Baggage Series 4 alludes to the traumas that refugees carry with them—the toll it takes physically and mentally. Each painstakingly detailed, multi-layered model stretches skyward from suitcases that were themselves donated by the descendants of earlier generations of immigrants to the United States, who fled Europe and the devastation of the Second World War. My juxtaposition of contemporary art and historical artifact physically joins the stories of Syrian refugees to America’s long heritage as a nation of immigrants. In its ability to connect with audiences at the level of their lineage, Baggage Series 4 transcends a purely humanitarian position and intervenes in the complicated racial and nationalist dimensions of refugee resettlement today.” — Mohamad Hafez in Syria, Then and Now: Stories from Refugees a Century Apart

Hurricane Maria, the 15th tropical depression this season, is now battering the Caribbean, just two weeks after Hurricane Irma wreaked havoc in the region. The devastation in Dominica is “mind-boggling,” wrote the country’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, on Facebook just after midnight on September 19. The next day, in Puerto Rico, NPR reported via member station WRTU in San Juan that “Most of the island is without power…or water.”

Among the Caribbean islands impacted by both deadly storms are Puerto Rico, St Kitts, Tortola and Barbuda. In this region, disaster damages are frequently amplified by needlessly protracted and incomplete recoveries. In 2004, Hurricane Ivan rolled roughshod through the Caribbean with wind speeds of 160 mph. The region’s economy took more than three years to recover. Grenada’s surplus of US$17 million became a deficit of $54 million, thanks to decreased revenue and the outlays for rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Nor were the effects of a 7 magnitude earthquake that rocked Haiti in 2010 limited to killing some 150,000 people. United Nations peacekeepers sent in to help left the country grappling, to this day, with a fatal cholera outbreak. These are not isolated instances of random bad luck. As University of the West Indies geographers who study risk perception and political ecology, we recognize the deep, human-induced roots of climate change, inequality and the underdevelopment of former colonies – all of which increase the Caribbean’s vulnerability to disaster.

Haiti, where eight out of every 10 people live on less than $4 a day, offers an example of how capitalism, gender and history converge to compound storm damage. The country is among the Western Hemisphere’s poorest in large part because of imperialism. After Haitians successfully overthrew their European enslavers in 1804, global powers economically stifled the island. From 1915 to 1934, the U.S. first militarily occupied Haiti, and then followed a policy of intervention that continues to have lasting effects on its governance. International interference and the resulting weak institutions, in turn, impeded development, poverty reduction and empowerment efforts.

the flag is an idol in which people literally pledge their allegiance to

patriotic anthems = hymns

the military itself is a treated like a priest class; the “laypeople” are expected to display the utmost respect for their pure existence.

indoctrination of children

displays of patriotism determines how “faithful” the individual is

presence of nationalism at different events (such as sports games, festivals, schools etc…) eerily resembles a theocracy

Announcing the Launch of our new website!

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The new site combines the same core features and functionality that veteran users will recognize with new tools including Browse by Topic, User Guides, and more!

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM

The Venerable Thich Quảng Đức Monument

A memorial to the monk who set himself on fire to protest the persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam.

On June 11, 1963, Thích Quảng Đức rode to Saigon from the war-torn city of Huế in an Austin Westminster. He stepped out of the baby blue automobile onto a busy intersection and sat calmly in the lotus position while a colleague poured gasoline from a five-gallon container over his head.

Holding onto a string of prayer beads, the Buddhist monk spoke the words “Nam mô A Di Đà Phật” (“Homage to Amitābha Buddha”), struck a match, and placed it against his fuel-soaked robe.

In the 1950s, Vietnam had become increasingly hostile towards its Buddhist population, which made up an estimated 70 percent to 90 percent of the population. But the country’s first president, Ngô Đình Diệm, represented the Catholic minority. He took office in 1955, and enacted discriminatory policies that favored Catholics and neglected Buddhists for public service roles, military promotions, land allocation, and business arrangements. Despite an overwhelming majority of Buddhist citizens, the Roman Catholic Church was the largest landowner in Vietnam at the time.

In 1959, a ban on flying the Buddhist flag on the birthday of Gautama Buddha exacerbated the public discontent, and people took to the streets in protest. Government forces fired on the crowd and killed nine people. Diệm refused to accept responsibility, and outrage and consequential protests increased in the following years.

On June 11, 1963, Thích Quảng Đức, surrounded by a circle of protesters, burned himself to death. He described his intentions in a final note: “I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally.”  

A victim of US bombing, ethnic Cambodian guerrilla Danh Son Huol is carried to an improvised operating room in a mangrove swamp on the Cà Mau Peninsula, Vietnam, on September 15, 1970, during the Vietnam War.

via reddit

Isamu Noguchi, Uncle Takagi,1931, terracotta

When Noguchi arrived in Japan in 1931, his first visit since childhood, he had a tense visit with his estranged father, Yonejiro, and Yonejiro’s wife and family. “My Uncle Takagi gave me a new house to stay in, and showered me with kindness, as did other relatives who gave me to understand that they favored my mother.” (Isamu Noguchi, A Sculptor’s World, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1968: 20.) 

Sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd founded the American Red Cross Studio for Portrait-Masks to provide cosmetic masks to be worn by men who had been badly disfigured in World War I. Her services earned her the Légion d'Honneur Crois de Chevalier and the Serbian Order of Saint Sava. Explore her digitized papers here: http://s.si.edu/2lfxCOj

This photograph from the A. B. Holder collection, which depicts a white man, an Asian man, a Native American person, and an African American man, is a fascinating snapshot of the American West. It would have been taken in Montana in the late 1880s. 

Born in Mississippi in 1860, Dr. Holder worked briefly as a physician on the Crow reservation in Montana. During his time there, he researched the Native American bote (“not man, not woman”) and published his findings in an article often cited in queer studies. Holder died in Memphis in 1896.

Chapter 1: Prologue: Why LGBTQ Historic Sites Matter by Mark Meinke

Chapter 2: Introduction to the LGBTQ Heritage Initiative Theme Study by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 3: Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History in the United States by Leisa Meyer and Helis Sikk

Chapter 4: The History of Queer History: One Hundred Years of the Search for Shared Heritage by Gerard Koskovich

Chapter 5: The Preservation of LGBTQ Heritage by Gail Dubrow

Chapter 6: LGBTQ Archeological Context by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 7: A Note about Intersectionality by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 8: Making Bisexuals Visible by Loraine Hutchins

Chapter 9: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native America and the Pacific Islands by Will Roscoe

Chapter 10: Transgender History in the US and the Places that Matter by Susan Stryker

Chapter 11: Breathing Fire: Remembering Asian Pacific American Activism in Queer History by Amy Sueyoshi

Chapter 12: Latina/o Gender and Sexuality by Deena J. González and Ellie D. Hernandez

Chapter 13: “Where We Could Be Ourselves”: African American LGBTQ Historic Places and Why They Matter by Jeffrey A. Harris

Chapter 14: LGBTQ Spaces and Places by Jen Jack Gieseking

Chapter 15: Making Community: The Places and Spaces of LGBTQ Collective Identity Formation by Christina B. Hanhardt

Chapter 16: LGBTQ Business and Commerce by David K. Johnson

Chapter 17: Sex, Love, and Relationships by Tracy Baim

Chapter 18: LGBTQ Civil Rights in America by Megan E. Springate

Chapter 19: Historical Landmarks and Landscapes of LGBTQ Law by Marc Stein

Chapter 20: LGBTQ Military Service by Steve Estes

Chapter 21: Struggles in Body and Spirit: Religion and LGBTQ People in US History by Drew Bourn

Chapter 22: LGBTQ and Health by Katie Batza

Chapter 23: LGBTQ Art and Artists by Tara Burk

Chapter 24: LGBTQ Sport and Leisure by Katherine Schweighofer

Chapter 25: San Francisco: Placing LGBTQ Histories in the City by the Bay by Donna J. Graves and Shayne E. Watson

Chapter 26: Preservation of LGBTQ Historic & Cultural Sites – A New York City Perspective by Jay Shockley

Chapter 27: Locating Miami’s Queer History by Julio Capó, Jr.

Chapter 28: Queerest Little City in the World: LGBTQ Reno by John Jeffrey Auer IV

Chapter 29: Chicago: Queer Histories at the Crossroads of America by Jessica Herczeg-Konecny

Chapter 30: Nominating LGBTQ Places to the National Register of Historic Places and as National Historic Landmarks: An Introduction by Megan E. Springate and Caridad de la Vega

Chapter 31: Interpreting LGBTQ Historic Sites by Susan Ferentinos