Ana Garcia JaCome: It Was Like She Never Existed
@ 6018North
6018 N Kenmore Ave, Chicago, IL, 60660
Opening Wednesday, October 2nd, from 8PM - 9PM
Join us for the screening of “It’s like she had never existed,” a short film by disabilities justice artist Ana Garcia JaCome.
It’s like she had never existed. We never go to the cemetery to see her, they never tell her childhood stories or her achievements. The only thing that is known is that she was sick. I only know what she looks like because of the picture in the grandparents’ bathroom, where she looks normal, but fearful. Of the several family albums of photographs of parties and picnics, she only appears in 2 when she was very young and someone is always holding her up, forcing her, pointing towards the camera as if she was not able to find it by herself. The only frequent reference to her name is when naming the room she occupied, which was built specifically for her: the room at the back of the house, the smallest, which after being “the room of Coquis” was “the room of the children,” my room.
Once I saw a picture of her, already an adult, in bed, with all the appearance of a conventional sick person; and I accepted her like that and saved that picture in my imagination, just as everyone else did. But that imagination was an incomplete construction, it did not say that its deterioration, both physiological and within the family history, was caused by cerebral palsy, that the first signs of it were a few months after he was born, that she stopped walking when she was 9 or 10 years, that she died the year I was born.
Nor did it say if she felt like everyone describes her or if she had the chance to control her representation in the photos, if she wanted to go out more often and they did not let her or if she preferred to hide in the back room. Does that happen in all families that have sick people?
When does sickness becomes disability? Why does it seem like she never existed? What is it that everyone wants to erase? Why?
*Due to time constraints the ZINE workshop portion of this event will be postponed. Our regrets! Feel free to reach out to Ana if you’d like more information.*
This event is free and open to the public. The Justice Hotel will be making popcorn.
http://justicehotel.6018north.org
#ChicagoBiennial, #AndOtherSuchStories #JusticeHotel #6018NORTH
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Tags: 6018NORTH, Ana Garcia JaCome, Chicago, Edgewater, It Was Like She Never Existed, Justice Hotel
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