Exhibition Opening: Cantando Bajito: Chorus

The Ford Foundation Gallery is pleased to present Cantando Bajito: Chorus curated by Roxana Fabius, Beya Othmani, Mindy Seu, and Susana Vargas Cervantes on view October 8 – December 7, 2024.

Please join us for the opening celebration on Tuesday, October 8th, 5 – 7pm.

Cantando Bajito: Chorus is the final movement of our three-part exhibition series celebrating strategies for resistance in the wake of rising gender-based violence. The power of many voices joining in harmony becomes a fitting metaphor for this culminating show that considers the politically powerful act of coming together. The exhibition is an invitation to reflect on the importance of collective making, organizing, and care arising from interdependence found in shared struggles. 

Featuring numerous collectives and archives, as well as artists working in the contexts of protest movements around the world, this remarkable show embodies its themes of collective creativity, support, and resistance. Chorus invokes a layered musical metaphor: a chorus is an assembly of voices that builds together, and is also the part of a song that invites others to add their voice. Both evoke the power of coming together, of joining our voices in a shared performance. This performance celebrates what scholar Leticia Sabsay calls the “aesthetics of vulnerability.” Countering the “aesthetics of cruelty”—present in violence against feminized bodies that aims to divide and erase them—this concept recognizes the emancipatory potential of feminized bodies facing vulnerability en masse, rising above dividing lines in solidarity. 

Chorus assembles artworks and archives by Hoda Afshar, Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina (Trans Memory Archive Argentina), Archivo Memoria Trans México/Hospital de ropa (Trans Memory Archive Mexico/Clothing Hospital), Chloë Bass, Tania Candiani, Fatma Charfi, Lizania Cruz, Cyberfeminism Index, FAQ?, Cecilia Granara, Los Angeles Contemporary Archive, Mai Ling, and Textiles Semillas (Textiles as Seeds). Together, the works illuminate how the coming together of bodies forges power out of precarity.

With special thanks to members of the Cantando Bajito curatorial advisory group: Isis Awad, María Carri, Zasha Colah, Maria Catarina Duncan, Kobe Ko, and Marie Hélène Pereira.

Image courtesy of Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina (Trans Memory Archive Argentina).