Identity, Care Labor, and Matrilineal Stories – Bodies Carrying Exhibit Programming

Description by Cristina Alejandra Jimenez Gomez, Javi Fuentes Bernal and David Diaz Méndez

This is an event composed of two artist presentations followed by a joint Q&A. It will begin with a performance and talk by Cristina Alejandra Jimenez Gomez (Resonant roots: an intergenerational storytelling), followed by a presentation from Javi Fuentes Bernal and David Diaz Méndez on their collaborative project (Démarches décoloniales de fabulation critique et de reconnection: Hypergraphie, performance et futurismes andins dans la création de la Revue d’études Travesti, Q’iwa & Suprabinaires).

1. Resonant roots: an intergenerational storytelling (Cristina Alejandra Jimenez Gomez):

Cristina Alejandra Jimenez Gomez’s event includes a solo performance (resonant roots) and a performative talk: (mise en corps/puesta-en-cuerpo) which zooms in on the role of coperas (women who worked at cafés, combining traditional waitressing with some escorting services without necessarily being sex workers) in Colombia.

Resonant Roots encompasses Alba’s story (the artist’s great-grandmother) narrated through the voices of her daughter and granddaughter. While a video is projected, the performer enacts physical movements and interacts with objects around the space. Within this maternal lineage, some stories want to be told, others are hidden or denied. Are those stories somehow imprinted in the performer’s body, although unknown? What are the resonances of her body with the audio archives of her distant lineage?

mise en corps/puesta-en-cuerpo expands the inquiry; It is a performative talk which outlines the research process on the concept of public women, focusing on the role of coperas. Also, it draws on the dramaturgical guidelines, the exploration of storytelling, and the creative questions raised to develop these pieces.

Cristina Alejandra Jimenez Gomez (she/they) is a Colombian interdisciplinary artist and educator developing her PhD studies in the INDI program. She is interested in creative, transformative and communal experiences that address critical intersectional concerns. Based in Tiohtià:ke – Mooniyang – Montreal since 2019. CA is affiliated with Hexagram, Milieux-LeParc, COHDS, ALLab, and SenseLab-3e at Concordia University. Editor and workshop facilitator at Kodama Cartonera, an independent publishing house born in Tijuana, Mexico, in 2010. CA’s research-creation approach is performative, feminist, and (an)archival. Her perspectives stem from embodied practices as a source of knowledge, intertwining processes of doing-feeling-thinking. Due to their experience in different theatre troupes, CA learned about diverse techniques focused on developing research and creative methods for, in, and within public spaces and non-conventional stages. Currently, they are a board member of Teesri Duniya Theatre, where she has developed two community engagement projects.

The performance includes audio in Spanish with video subtitles in English.
The performative talk is held in English.

2. Démarches décoloniales de fabulation critique et de reconnection: Hypergraphie, performance et futurismes andins dans la création de la Revue d’études Travesti, Q’iwa & Suprabinaires (Javi Fuentes Bernal & David Diaz Méndez)

Decolonial approaches of critical fabulation and reconnection: Hypergraphy, performance, and Andean futurisms in the creation of the Journal of Travesti, Q’iwa & Suprabinaires Studies.

​​Interweaving critical fabulation, hypergraphy, and Pastos symbolism, this presentation delves into the creative process behind the Journal of Travesti, Q’iwa & Suprabinary Studies. This journal challenges the linear narratives of colonialism by reactivating indigenous imaginaries through their hybridization with experimental graphic practices. Grounded in Travesti and diasporic studies, the journal’s critical fabulation—developed in collaboration with David Mendez for graphic design and enriched by the performances of Javi Fuentes Bernal and their mother, Yadila Bernal—becomes a tool for inventing alternative narratives that unsettle the boundaries of the so-called fixed truths of colonial historiography. Through a hypergraphy that intertwines writing, drawing, ancestral symbols, and contemporary visual languages, the project explores forms of storytelling that are vibrant, multifaceted, and polysemic. This hybridity serves as a lever for reconfiguring Latinx Cholas aesthetics and imagining new visual forms in resonance with Andean futurism. By mobilizing performance as a space for the reactivation of long memories and other sensory repertoires, the project fosters living connections between intergenerational transmission, critical fabulation, and humor. In this presentation, we explore our research and creative process from sensitive perspectives aimed at rethinking and inhabiting our identities beyond the frameworks imposed by colonialism and whiteness.

About the speakers

Javi Fuentes Bernal est un·e artiste transdisciplinaire, chercheur·e et intervenant·e colombien·ne basé·e à Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. Son travail s’inspire des fabulations critiques et des pratiques archivistiques, à l’intersection des pensées trans*travesti, migrantes et autochtones. À travers la performance, la vidéo, l’installation et l’écriture, Javi explore les affects liés à la mobilité, ainsi que les relations entre mémoire, territoire et culture populaire. Javi a récemment contribué à des expositions telles que Unique en son genre (Musée de la Civilisation, 2023), Awera en Bakatá (Museo Nacional de Colombia, 2024), et Le Québec, autrement dit (Musée de la Civilisation, 2024) et Minga Suprabinaire (PHI, 2025). Ses recherches ont bénéficié du soutien d’institutions telles que le Centre de recherche en santé publique CReSP, le Fonds de recherche du Québec, et une bourse Vanier pour ses études doctorales en travail social à l’Université de Montréal.

David Díaz Méndez est étudiant en design graphique à l’École de design de l’UQAM. Il s’intéresse au langage polysémique caractéristique des contextes d’hybridité culturelle et à la manière dont celui-ci peut enrichir les différentes sphères du design graphique. Il a rejoint l’équipe d’Hypercodex en 2023, où il participe à la conception de l’identité visuelle de l’exposition ALCUIN (2023-2024), à l’événement FORUM (2024), ainsi qu’à la recherche et à la conception graphique des projets d’Amandine Alessandra Ephemeral Typography: Writing the impermanent et FLUX/Mémoires Photophobes. II sest illustré aux ADCC Student Awards 2024 en remportant le bronze dans la catégorie design graphique.

Event language(s): English and Spanish, French