90 MILES
Modern Art, Boise, ID
May 7, 2015
Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA
May 13, 2016
90 Miles is a collaborative performance by Rachel Smith and Juventino Aranda where the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie are read simultaneously. Aranda reads into a megaphone while standing and Smith reads while in a seated position on a white cloth. This piece overlaps ideas of communism along with a mass exodus of unaccompanied children from Cuba to the United States called Operación Pedro Pan, which occurred from 1960-1962 following the Revolution in 1959. The rectangular white cloth or bed is a manifestation of a raft which is common to the Cuban immigrant experience and throughout the performance Aranda would yell the words “stroke, stroke, stroke” into the megaphone and Smith would paddle on the side simulating the 90 mile passage between Cuba and Florida. The white cloth and clothing is symbolic of the purity of children as well as common attire to the Afro-Caribbean religion of Santeria. Aranda and Smith explore the challenges of immigration as they relate to their Mexican and Cuban heritage respectively.
