Stephanie Acosta

Aquí y Allá (2016)

Aquí y Allá, the result of a year-long dialogue between artists Stephanie Acosta and J Soto, focused on the overwhelming complexity of identifying as Latinx while representations in popular culture and the art world reify tired visions of otherness rather than expressing our contemporary presence. Both New York based artists working extensively in collaboration, Acosta and Soto chart out territory for a more dynamic dialogue. Aquí y Allá manifests as a collection of new artworks developed into two archives in the forms of video and sculpture; an object theatre.  Acosta resists the finality of anthropology and captures its fleeting nature through discursive translation engaging the photographic imprint and creating present futures. Soto complicates categorization by honoring contradiction and unintelligibility suggesting the mutable and evolving nature of the personal subject in tension with the national subject and sexuality.