Existing comment:
Amber Robles-Gordon presents Successions: Traversing US Colonialism. Successions is a conceptual juxtaposition that celebrates abstraction as an art form while leveraging it as a tool to interrogate the United States' policies within its federal district (Washington, DC) and five inhabited territories. By highlighting issues impacting marginalized communities oppressed by US governance, Robles-Gordon questions who has access to resources, citizenship, and the right to sovereignty.
A woman of Caribbean and African descent, Robles-Gordon mines ancestral stories, aesthetics, and her personal narrative to investigate the political, socio-economic, and environmental implications of the United States' colonial policies in its federal district and territories. These works include various symbols that Robles-Gordon uses to construct a cartography based on inquiry and possibility.
Successions features two bodies of artwork: "Place of Breath and Birth," a series of ten mixed media collage on canvas works, and "Successions: Traversing US Colonialism," seven double-sided mixed media assemblage quilts created in 2020 and 2021 in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Robles-Gordon's birthplace) and Washington, DC (where she currently lives). This entrance (by the elevator) presents the back, "Spiritual" side of each quilt. The staircase entrance features the front, "Political" side of each quilt. The combination of the "Political" and "Spiritual" sides are designed to critique Americanization, acknowledge the cultural agency of each territory, and challenge viewers to consider what legacy our generation bequeaths to the next on our journey towards social justice. |