Technicolor? Or just rainbow tinted lenses….
A geographic study of queer space in Tijuana, Mexico
Technicolor (2011) was commissioned for Lasse Lau’s series Queer Geography, Technicolor questioned whether the desire of artists and theorists to use the term “queer” to describe Tijuana’s spaces and exchanges arises from an imposition on our part, or from a keen discernment of the complexities produced by the friction between the population and the region. Sayak Valencia and I produced a series of interventions that questioned gender constructs, and with them sexuality, and then documented the public’s reaction.
Over a weekend, we performed a wheat pasting campaign over a 29 block area of downtown Tijuana, including: the area around Plaza Santa Cecilia, Sixth Street, the area around the Las Pulgas nightclub. We inserted the logo into differing visual contexts that dealt explicitly or implicitly with the questions we were exploring, the logo asked “Who is a man? Who is a woman?” We also intervened public images by drawing mustaches on women and putting lipstick on male lips.
Over a weekend, we performed a wheat pasting campaign over a 29 block area of downtown Tijuana, including: the area around Plaza Santa Cecilia, Sixth Street, the area around the Las Pulgas nightclub. We inserted the logo into differing visual contexts that dealt explicitly or implicitly with the questions we were exploring, the logo asked “Who is a man? Who is a woman?” We also intervened public images by drawing mustaches on women and putting lipstick on male lips.
The essay for this project, was published in Queer Geographies (Beirut, Tijuana, Copenhagen), 2015.
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor poster: Who is a woman? Who is a man?
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor, 2011
Technicolor, 2011
Image from Tijuana’s first LGBT march, where a local merchant offered photos with a rainbow-colored donkey.
Technicolor, 2011
Map of downtown Tijuana with the area we covered marked in green.