Series Site
Curated by Dessane Lopez Cassell, Unraveling Paradise presents a selection of Caribbean films and artist’s moving image works that pry apart illusions of the region as a tropical “paradise.”
There’s a powerful myth that’s been reinforced in the Caribbean for centuries. From early tourism campaigns to contemporary media, visions of the region as a tropical ‘paradise’ abound—each peddling a fantasy carefully crafted for maximum consumption. Framing the notion of paradise as a case study in colonialmyth-making, this film series centers instability, mischief, and the mundane as counter gestures to the fantasies that bind the Caribbean in a predatory economic and cultural relationship with the Global North. Featuring work by Sofía Gallisá Muriente (with the New York premiere of Celaje), Joiri Minaya, Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada, Esther Figueroa, Johanné Gómez Terrero, and Dalissa Montes de Oca (with the US premiere of Pacaman). —Dessane Lopez Cassell
Co-presented with Abrons Arts Center.
Abrons Arts Center is a home for contemporary interdisciplinary arts in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood. A core program of the Henry Street Settlement, Abrons believes that access to the arts is essential to a free and healthy society. Through performance presentations, exhibitions, education programs, and residencies, Abrons mobilizes communities with the transformative power of art.