Reviewed by Teresa Diaz
Green, Go!
An installation for Caras Vemos, Corazones No Sabemos: The Human Landscape of Mexican Migration

Green, Go! , 2008

What:             Caras Vemos, Corazones No Sabemos: the Human Landscape of Human Migration
When:              Opens March 4 - May 10, 2009
Where:             The Alameda Museum, San Antonio, Texas

From an enigmatic panel with similar drives arose Maria Elena Castro, the star of the stage and the youngest of all four Chicano panelists of the “Caras Vemos, Corazones No Sabemos (Faces Seen, Hearts Unknown)” exhibition symposium at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Her discourse on borders and immigration where clearly imbibed in her unconscious tantrum of vividly bursting, enigmatic figures of “Green, Go!” her latest installation for the traveling exhibit. Unlike her previous work, Maria Elena’s triumphant improvisational installation glowed with awe.

A Mexican born in the state of Sinaloa, Maria Elena witnessed her father’s suffering with cultural identity and abandonment guilt, and became a painful witness to a downward spiral of weakening strength for withstanding the trials of an illegal circumstance on “the other side of the border.” Her natural reaction to child memories is not meant to be cartoon-like; rather it speaks of the dread of forgetting her father’s longing reminisce of his homeland. As the daughter of a Mexican, “mojado” immigrant in search of a better life, she absorbed the portraits of her embattled past –as an American, she dug her heels at camouflaging, and as a Mexican, she staked her egalitarian beliefs for her family’s complaisance.

Her boldly titled installation, “Green, Go!” –either a dubious glorification or aversion to her own truth– filled with hyperactive energy and bombarding nonsensical imagery is a confirmation of Castro’s diatribe against her father’s obliged cultural assimilation and her anguish as a Mexican-American misfit.  A play of words of Mexican origin, Green, Go! can be translated as an outcry of anti-American sentiment or as a derision of Mexican malinchismo. Castro’s rhetoric applies Green, Go! in a context of mockery and iconoclasm.

The chaotic gravity-defying objects that are caught in one’s own millisecond view span of the installation angst our mass-media hungry eye. Voluminous, strangely amorphic, life-size bodies suspend in space tauntingly hovering, flying or crawling frantically above green, alien-like grounded creatures. The green creatures encrusted with microchips and other computer-like parts trod heavily in a group with suction-like feet among the havoc –perhaps a poignant reference to actions of colonial militarism and unrelenting invasion. Trapped in a frozen moment, confusion takes over as these uniformed creatures swat the air defensively to no avail –some fist at the flying figures, some as if caring a stick aiming to hit the piñata-like figures, and some swing their arms as if calling for help with open hands.  In contrast with these robotic, green aliens, the fantastic invaders wearing carnavalesque suits burst out with flagrant luminosity –mystically flying, twisting and stirring provokingly. On the right, a swarm of white, doted, and flowered characters wearing rabbit ears prance around innocently, avoiding what seemed a threatening invader. The baby-sized bodies flap their large bunny-like ears fearlessly swirling and navigating the skies among the adult ones. While on the left, more seriously decorated composed figures float senselessly overblown with a superfluity of bliss.

Almost scarecrow-like, the Virgin Guadalupe raises her arms as seen in Goya’s Third of May, giving up on her struggle, surrendering a valiantly fought battle, or less seriously, as if shooing off flies from the kitchen window. Her aural rays emanate like spikes from her scull, reminiscing a statuesque Lady Liberty. Her solemn fixed-gaze burrows the actions of the green alien creatures, evading the surrounding chaos, but hangs confined in a restraining-like costume decorated with table cloth vinyl, gold leaf shapes, and swirls of paint echoing those on the flying figures.  

Like tentacle extensions or multi-headed serpents escaping from her moon crest, the Virgin Guadalupe rests on these extrusions of aluminum ducts ending in mirror balls entangled with what appears as green ooze to almost reach the viewer at center stage. The apocalyptic scene throttles the space. It’s clear that a most-anticipated collusion will take place, and the audience watches in anticipation.

“Green Go!” by Maria Elena Castro is part of “Caras Vemos Corazones No Sabemos: The Human Landscape of Mexican Migration” exhibition on view at The Alameda Museum, San Antonio, TX from March 4 – May 10, 2009.