Palomitas Blancas, 1994

(Each uniform: 48 x 18 x 14 inches approx.)
(Each box: 48 x 18 x 6 inches)

Palomitas Blancas (Little White Doves) was produced in Argentina, after I received one of my first creation grants. The work is directly related to my experience of exile. It is probably one of the few pieces that speak in such an autobiographical manner bringing childhood memories and the experience of immigration together. Children wearing the white uniforms would be called in popular vernacular as “Little White Doves”.

The work is made of two sets of uniforms. On the floor a group of six uniforms made out of Kraft paper, life size, standing like in a vigil, in two rows. The uniforms are modeled after the white uniforms used by girls in the public education system, most of the time at the elementary level. I worked from the actual patterns to cut them out and machine sewn them like if I was working with a fabric.

On the wall, placed at eye level, there is a second set of uniforms encased on two acrylic boxes, housing one uniform each. There is powder graphite, inside at the bottom of the boxes, and fingerprints marks on the acrylic. Each box has an etched message on the surface, ‘Mira atras’ and ‘Al bajar’: this translates as ‘Look Behind’ and ‘When You Step Down’. This sign is found on the back door of public city buses to warn people to be careful of potential upcoming traffic; buses would not always stop close to the curve.

I use this sign to speak of history, of how as citizens we must look back continuously at the past if we want to understand our present and our future.

The work speaks of absence and of presence revealing different levels of meaning and of understanding of the experience of violence and immigration.