Latino Midwest Video Collective
Latino Midwest Video Collective locates its practice primary within the US Latino, Caribbean and Latin American contexts. Our aesthetic inspirations focuses on the terrain of popular memory, migration, exile, the politics of desire and experimental production.
Works such as Merida Poscrita (1990), Paraiso Yucateco (1991), In Search of Our Vocies (1989), Cities of Lust (1993), and Sunny Clouds at the Crossroads (1996) take as points of departure the subjective experience in relation to the larger sociocultural and politic speheres active in our communities. Our works develop out of an understanding that the conventional distinctions between reality and fiction and their related genres such as fictional drama, social documentary and surrealism are not longer sufficiently represent the US Latino, Caribbean and Latin American experiences.
We work as a collective and our productions encompass and recognize the contributions of each individual. As Latino media makers, we critique elements of the political systems affecting our social relations and cultural survival, as well as those working within our communities of belonging. (Ferrera-Balanquet, 1992).
The collective see ourselves as cultural workers. As Xicano media scholar and curator Chon Noriega highlights in his essay El hilo latino: representation, identity and national culture: "On a regional level, groups such as Cine Acción (San Francisco), Latino Collaborative (New York), Latino Midwest Video Collective (Chicago), and Latino Writers and Filmmakers of the 1990s (Los Angeles) have provided technical support, non-broadcast distribution, re-granting, and other services to independent film and videomakers" (1993).
The creative forces that place our practice within the shifting territories of the Latino Diaspora command the form and content of our our work. Our practice is at all level a social practice. We are cultural workers in contact with ancestral and popular memory, always moving away from the dominant eurocentric colonial forces
REVIEWS / RESEÑAS
Yet a third group of Cuban exiles — what might be called the "Cuban American" or "third" generation — has been making its presence felt in alternative film and video circles. Among these primarily multimedia artists are: ...Raúl Ferrera-Balarquet, a University of Iowa film school graduate whose MÉRIDA PROSCRITA (1990), WE ARE HABLANDO (1991) and NO ME OLVIDES (1992) offer poignant analyses of the difficulties and marginalization of gay Latino life in a North-South context.
De igual modo sus contactos sistemáticos —y posterior asentamiento— con una ciudad como Mérida y una cultura como la yucateca, con su descendencia maya, le harán igualmente cuestionarse el poco impacto de las producciones artísticas de esa región en el panorama artístico mexicano, y latino, para lo cual funda en la propia ciudad de Iowa, el colectivo de producciones de video Latino Midwest (1986). De modo que comienza con ello la construcción de un modelo audiovisual en el que convergen la intersubjetividad o diversidad subjetiva que le inspiran su propia experiencia migratoria, de género, y de sexualidad, y la experiencia de las comunidades translocales que emergen de los flujos migratorios de carácter históricos y su presencia en las grandes urbes o en las pequeñas ciudades de provincia.
Colectivo de Video Latino Midwest-Mérida, fundado en 1989 (su antecesor, de 1986, no incluía Mérida y provino de Iowa.), y reunió talentos de latinos residentes en Estados Unidos, colombianos de paso por esta tierra, la inquieta versatilidad de un cubano emparentado con Yucatán y a prolíficos y combativos artistas locales del teatro, la lit eratura la música y las artes plásticas. Así, aprovechando los talentos y formaciones diversos de sus miembros este grupo logró producir y realizar videocintas –Rompecabezas (trabajo en construcción), El paraíso yucateco (28 mins. 1990), Mérida Proscrita (7 mins. 1991), Sucesos del 22 (8 mins. 1991), Resistencia (28 mins. 1992), y No me olvides (33 mins.1992)– exhibidas luego en festivales independientes y circuitos alternativos en Estados Unidos, Canadá, Italia, Cuba, Alemania, Holanda, México y Puerto Rico. o