"Let My Baby Stay" ***video project
Donation protected
Alexandra Eguiluz is a Peruvian artist based in Paris, where she is completing her graduate studies at the Beaux Art de Paris. Her multimedia work explores social and political themes. At the moment she is working on a video project about immigrant identity, specifically about how many immigrants adopt multiple identities to live and survive in today`s America. Filming will take place in Winston-Salem, North Carolina – the current home of individuals who have agreed to collaborate with the project. Work on location is scheduled for July and August. Editing and post-production will take place in Paris. The video has a November 2018 target release date.
alexandraeguiluz.com
"Let my baby Stay"
What is the first thing that comes to mind when people ask you, who you are?
Silvia (like many others) emigrated to the United States, wanting something that had escaped her before. In this new land, she knew that she could no longer be who she had been. Like many others, to survive, she adopted the identity of someone she had never known – someone she would never know. A new name. A new birthday. A new language and nationality. A new life. For Silvia (like many others), imagining the gestures, the character and the essence of Daisy (her new identity) guides her relationships and her answers to questions about her past life. In order to construct a double “self” that she could present to her environment in a natural way, she must : get used to turn her head when someone call out her name(s), she must write her new name(s) without thinking twice, be careful not to confuse her personal histories and wonder constantly what the real Daisy has done and what she is doing at that precise moment. Silvia (like many others) must remain who she is not / who she is, as time goes by.
The film “Let my baby stay” reflects the experience of immigrants who buy and adopt an identity of someone who has sold his / her name and status to an illegal market created by necessity. I will travel to North Carolina to meet Silvia/Daisy and many others like her.
Filming their lifestyle, their dualities, their families and friends. This video will provide a complex answer to the simple question of: who are you? .
Note d’intention:
The 1980’s and early 90’s were a difficult time for Peru. The country was rocked by terrorism, economic instability, massive unemployment and political mayhem. All the while the media stood silent as the situation deteriorated. The chaos and confusion of this tumultuous time resulted in countless injustices, many of which only came to light years later.
For me the adversity and hardship of this time is personal. I felt the consequences in the departure of my relatives. They left Peru and went to the United States to find better opportunities. It is these stories that I have compiled from people who choose not to forget their past and their choices. These are stories of struggle and determination and resilience.
A different struggle awaited those immigrants upon arrival in a new country, their new life as undocumented workers. In order to survive they were forced to create a new reality based on a borrowed identity. This reality involved taking on a fake persona in order to find work, answering to a name that is not your own, creating a credible life story based on a lie... Essentially adjusting to living a large part of life within a false narrative.
These stories revolve around the duality of living two lives simultaneously. I grew up with these stories as they were shared through phone conversations, endless emails, homemade cassettes sent by my relatives and word-of-mouth stories at the dinner table. My closeness with the nostalgia and romanticism related to the quest for identity shapes my artwork and motivates me to share in this film the implications of changing one’s name in order to survive and how that first change unfolds into a complicated adventure within oneself as well as with what surrounds us. This compilation of stories and experiences of people who have had to change their realities is my starting point.
One story is that of Daisy. Daisy is one of the many identities acquired by my aunt Silvia, a Peruvian woman living in North Carolina, who immigrated to the United States without documents in the 1980’s. Silvia, under the name of Daisy, a Puerto Rican woman born in the city of San Juan, works upholstering furniture, painting murals and decorating houses. Silvia is now a legal resident but to some she is still Daisy, the Puerto Rican from San Juan.
Pedro, a Peruvian immigrant who works in factories under the name of Mario Flores, a man born in Texas 10 years after he was born. This identity was used for eight years by Luis, until one day Luis discovers that Jorge had legal problems, so he destroys the papers belonging to Jorge, changes his identity and borrows the peppers and lifestyle of his friend Santiago Cruz.
We can see through his story, how in many factories in the US, most undocumented workers register under fake names and change their identity periodically, developing a game of role playing and acting between them and the employers.
Immigration is one of the most important issues of our time but we seem to have lost touch with the sensibility, humanity and complexity of being an immigrant. In discussions on the refugee crises and the situation in North America, the media has saturated the public with negative images and stereotypes, as they tend to portray immigrants as a whole in an unfavorable light. This is in itself a false narrative, as the vast majority of immigrants are simply looking to create a better life for themselves and their children.
My project highlights the fact that each story of migration is unique. Each story has its own perspective and nuance, influenced by the personalities and situations of each character. My camera will serve as a witness to their dual realities capturing the emotion, sensibility and humanity of these stories.
In my art, I share perspectives not discussed when we talk about immigration: names, language, silence, shyness, gestures, dreams, human relations, time, role play, accents, acting, dialogue, adaption conflict and closeness in the everyday life. The subject is human beings, in all of their — of our — variety and uniqueness.
Note de réalisation:
Filming is scheduled for July and August 2018 and will take place in Winston-Salem, North Carolina – the current home of individuals who have agreed to collaborate with the project.
The goal is to document and witness reality through the lens of my camera without interfering with the natural development of the characters, ambience and context.
My mission, as a video artist, is to choose what I am going to shoot, how I am going to shoot it and how I will use it without altering the moment with the aim of capturing the essence and guiding the concept of the film
To be present in the everyday life of the characters for two months will allow me to observe and film how Silvia is Daisy and Daisy is Silvia depending on the situation that they are confronting, or the way Luis represents Emilio and what Emilio thinks about Luis, etc..
The relationships they have built with their different identities and the way the others interact with Daisy and Silvia is an important element in order to understand the psychology of the characters in the film. Several elements will be part of the essence of the film : The way the characters change language (english / spanish), the sounds in the background, the food (a meaningful element for an immigrant), the long distance phone calls, the change of colors and the gestures of complicity between them. These elements express the confrontation of cultures, including their customs and the geographic space where these exist. July is the warmest month of the year in North Carolina which will mold the ambience and the rhythm of the film.
The passage of time will be built in to the editing process of the video, constructing the narrative structure and the sense, placing the sequences together. The editing is the longest process of my work, since in this stage the organization and development of the piece will take place, cutting and cleaning the video material like a linear collage with moving image, sound and words.
alexandraeguiluz.com
"Let my baby Stay"
What is the first thing that comes to mind when people ask you, who you are?
Silvia (like many others) emigrated to the United States, wanting something that had escaped her before. In this new land, she knew that she could no longer be who she had been. Like many others, to survive, she adopted the identity of someone she had never known – someone she would never know. A new name. A new birthday. A new language and nationality. A new life. For Silvia (like many others), imagining the gestures, the character and the essence of Daisy (her new identity) guides her relationships and her answers to questions about her past life. In order to construct a double “self” that she could present to her environment in a natural way, she must : get used to turn her head when someone call out her name(s), she must write her new name(s) without thinking twice, be careful not to confuse her personal histories and wonder constantly what the real Daisy has done and what she is doing at that precise moment. Silvia (like many others) must remain who she is not / who she is, as time goes by.
The film “Let my baby stay” reflects the experience of immigrants who buy and adopt an identity of someone who has sold his / her name and status to an illegal market created by necessity. I will travel to North Carolina to meet Silvia/Daisy and many others like her.
Filming their lifestyle, their dualities, their families and friends. This video will provide a complex answer to the simple question of: who are you? .
Note d’intention:
The 1980’s and early 90’s were a difficult time for Peru. The country was rocked by terrorism, economic instability, massive unemployment and political mayhem. All the while the media stood silent as the situation deteriorated. The chaos and confusion of this tumultuous time resulted in countless injustices, many of which only came to light years later.
For me the adversity and hardship of this time is personal. I felt the consequences in the departure of my relatives. They left Peru and went to the United States to find better opportunities. It is these stories that I have compiled from people who choose not to forget their past and their choices. These are stories of struggle and determination and resilience.
A different struggle awaited those immigrants upon arrival in a new country, their new life as undocumented workers. In order to survive they were forced to create a new reality based on a borrowed identity. This reality involved taking on a fake persona in order to find work, answering to a name that is not your own, creating a credible life story based on a lie... Essentially adjusting to living a large part of life within a false narrative.
These stories revolve around the duality of living two lives simultaneously. I grew up with these stories as they were shared through phone conversations, endless emails, homemade cassettes sent by my relatives and word-of-mouth stories at the dinner table. My closeness with the nostalgia and romanticism related to the quest for identity shapes my artwork and motivates me to share in this film the implications of changing one’s name in order to survive and how that first change unfolds into a complicated adventure within oneself as well as with what surrounds us. This compilation of stories and experiences of people who have had to change their realities is my starting point.
One story is that of Daisy. Daisy is one of the many identities acquired by my aunt Silvia, a Peruvian woman living in North Carolina, who immigrated to the United States without documents in the 1980’s. Silvia, under the name of Daisy, a Puerto Rican woman born in the city of San Juan, works upholstering furniture, painting murals and decorating houses. Silvia is now a legal resident but to some she is still Daisy, the Puerto Rican from San Juan.
Pedro, a Peruvian immigrant who works in factories under the name of Mario Flores, a man born in Texas 10 years after he was born. This identity was used for eight years by Luis, until one day Luis discovers that Jorge had legal problems, so he destroys the papers belonging to Jorge, changes his identity and borrows the peppers and lifestyle of his friend Santiago Cruz.
We can see through his story, how in many factories in the US, most undocumented workers register under fake names and change their identity periodically, developing a game of role playing and acting between them and the employers.
Immigration is one of the most important issues of our time but we seem to have lost touch with the sensibility, humanity and complexity of being an immigrant. In discussions on the refugee crises and the situation in North America, the media has saturated the public with negative images and stereotypes, as they tend to portray immigrants as a whole in an unfavorable light. This is in itself a false narrative, as the vast majority of immigrants are simply looking to create a better life for themselves and their children.
My project highlights the fact that each story of migration is unique. Each story has its own perspective and nuance, influenced by the personalities and situations of each character. My camera will serve as a witness to their dual realities capturing the emotion, sensibility and humanity of these stories.
In my art, I share perspectives not discussed when we talk about immigration: names, language, silence, shyness, gestures, dreams, human relations, time, role play, accents, acting, dialogue, adaption conflict and closeness in the everyday life. The subject is human beings, in all of their — of our — variety and uniqueness.
Note de réalisation:
Filming is scheduled for July and August 2018 and will take place in Winston-Salem, North Carolina – the current home of individuals who have agreed to collaborate with the project.
The goal is to document and witness reality through the lens of my camera without interfering with the natural development of the characters, ambience and context.
My mission, as a video artist, is to choose what I am going to shoot, how I am going to shoot it and how I will use it without altering the moment with the aim of capturing the essence and guiding the concept of the film
To be present in the everyday life of the characters for two months will allow me to observe and film how Silvia is Daisy and Daisy is Silvia depending on the situation that they are confronting, or the way Luis represents Emilio and what Emilio thinks about Luis, etc..
The relationships they have built with their different identities and the way the others interact with Daisy and Silvia is an important element in order to understand the psychology of the characters in the film. Several elements will be part of the essence of the film : The way the characters change language (english / spanish), the sounds in the background, the food (a meaningful element for an immigrant), the long distance phone calls, the change of colors and the gestures of complicity between them. These elements express the confrontation of cultures, including their customs and the geographic space where these exist. July is the warmest month of the year in North Carolina which will mold the ambience and the rhythm of the film.
The passage of time will be built in to the editing process of the video, constructing the narrative structure and the sense, placing the sequences together. The editing is the longest process of my work, since in this stage the organization and development of the piece will take place, cutting and cleaning the video material like a linear collage with moving image, sound and words.
Organizer
Alexandra Eguiluz
Organizer
Paris
