Si Tengo Oro, Es Guayaba: A Meditation on Personal and Historical Narratives

Abstract

I strive to find commonalities between my Puerto Rican and Egyptian heritage through creative practice. "Si Tengo Oro, Es Guayaba" investigates personal identity through the theory of genetic memory, ancestral knowledge and trauma transferred down through lineages. To dig through this ancestral remembrance and make sense of its nuances, I examined maps, clay objects, and the importance of gold in both cultures. Through my research-based approach, I narrowed the gap between my ethnic roots, creating links between my Egyptian and Puerto Rican heritage with my body as the site of convergence. My work is a 'generational archive' that serves to protect and develop a collection of ancestral knowledge. To broaden the scope of social/political contexts with my identity, I examined topographic and bathymetric maps, color as a symbolic tool, and created ceramics that relate closely to the historical artifacts like Canopic Jars. The jars, in particular, were very important as they were used to house organs of the buried in the pyramids, preserving them for those in the afterlife, the literal preservation of my ancestors. Through these examinations, I created abstract works that are vehicles of ancestral memory. I used methods of painting and ceramic making to further understand my exploration of the self. The result of this research resulted in the development of various cave and map-like images, simultaneously places of birthing, history, present, and future-making. These places have been the map of coming back to myself, to lineage. In this work, I found various forms of erasure from colonialism and imperialism. I also found that history can be drawn out and preserved through genetic memory, and "Si Tengo Oro, Es Guayaba" contributes to the discourse of various diasporas.