It's OK (united) #3

 

José Carlos Teixeira

 

“Our age is indeed the age of the refugee, the displaced person, the mass immigration. Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. (…) The achievements of exile are permanently undermined by the loss of something left behind forever.” —Edward Said

It's OK (united) #1 #2 #3 – three steps to a (r)evolution is a video project that takes its departure from a critical reflection around dominant educational, socio-cultural, and political premises in the West. The case of the United States seemed to be the most meaningful for me – not only because it is currently the country where I live and work (reinforcing the site-specificity quite prevalent in my videos), but also due to its paradigmatic and hegemonic nature.

Originally being the audiovisual component of a performance I was involved with at the end of 2004, It's OK (united) was born during my trips on the bus, in the metro rail system, and sometimes while I was driving to different parts of the city of Los Angeles. In my head, still fascinated and simultaneously overwhelmed with cultural and societal differences, the expression It's OK was marking a time and my early American experiences. As a repetitive common saying, it encapsulated paradoxes and contradictions (be it in the form of electoral results, in the state of war, in the lack of equality and freedom, in the discrimination and mutual racism I could witness almost every day). For me, It's OK turned out to be not only a friendly and soothing expression, but also an ironic way of accepting it all, or just simply a manner of withdrawing yourself from those things you cannot control or determine. Thus, I found myself compulsively writing down all these little statements initiated by It's OK . They were popping up like mushrooms, one after another, in an intense multiplication. Observing and confronting, I decided to bring all those ideological and behavioral aspects I felt that were OK . Also, I was bringing up the question of what type of limits we have in the process of negotiation with the Other (the one outside and inside ourselves)?

Therefore, appropriating the American national anthem and having those writings as lyrics for such a symbolic music, this piece attempts to subvert the founding principles of behaviors and attitudes taken as normal and positive. Playful, it questions beliefs, and aims to challenge ordinary perceptions of what Western culture defends as normalcy, correctness and assertiveness.

I usually address issues related to language, cultural identity formation, human dislocation, boundaries of personal and social spaces, and the definition of physical and psychic territory by using strategies of collaboration and group performance. This work is no exception – and what better starting point than the interaction with children and schools? There, everything begins and becomes complicated. Thus, the whole piece came from three collaborative versions-exercises: the first as a performance with five children in the park, all of them American citizens, despite their “accidental” Hispanic ascendancy (with its clear socio-economic consequences); the second as an experiment around the failure due to the unexpected project's cancellation in a high school setting (with its obvious political implications, and rising up notions of public and private); and, the third one, as the final successful achievement: an entire classroom of teenagers, along with the English teacher and the Head of the school, singing a later version of the lyrics I had previously created.

The cliché (as a metaphor and tool for an educational-cultural critique) is apparent in the way I put together soundtrack that I collected using solely National-Patriotic records: the national anthem (“Star Spangled Banner”), the “Pledge of Allegiance” on the third part, and the Mariah Carey's “Hero” on the second one. The three versions play with this ambiguity where extreme sincerity and irony, freedom and manipulation, collaboration and exploitation come together and coexist.

As video-maker and performer, simultaneously playing the roles of conductor and teacher, I appealed to an engagement with a learning that values the uncertainty, the doubt, and the loss, against pre-assumptions such as the success, the safety, or the power. Therefore, It's OK (united) #1 #2 #3 – three steps to a (r)evolution aims toward a discourse about prescient sociological and psychological issues as globalization, migration, integration and/or the frustration in the failure of the democratic ideals. It also enunciates ethics not dissociated from aesthetics: the artist-author as a responsive and responsible cultural, social and political agent. As Helen Keller would say, in such an ever-lasting manner, “this is a time for a loud voice, open speech, and fearless thinking – I rejoice that I live in such a splendidly disturbing time”. What is, after all, the image we wish to have about ourselves and what kind of legacy we leave behind?

NOTE

Extensions Journal is streaming IT'S OK (united) #3 .

To see IT'S OK (united) #1 go to:

http://www.freewaves.org/?page=artists#

and then click on Jose Carlos Teixeira.

L y r i c s:

It's ok to not succeed

It's ok to fall down

It's ok to feel lost

It's ok to fail

It's ok to despair

It's ok to not know

It's ok to have doubts

It's ok to waste time

It's ok to show feelings

It's ok to be warm

It's ok to get angry

It's ok to feel weak

It's ok to seem weird

It's ok to make confusion

It's ok to rethink

It's ok to restart

It's ok to not be sure of

Who I am or what I want

 

IT'S OK (united) #3

It's ok to be wrong

It's ok to be unsure

It's ok to not control

It's ok to lose

It's ok to depress

It's ok to scream loud

It's ok to not be proud

It's ok to protest

It's ok to be honest

And tell all the truth

IT'S OK, IT'S OK, IT'S OK, IT'S OK

 

José Carlos Teixeira (b. 1977, Porto, Portugal), is an artist who recently completed an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Interdisciplinary Studio at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), after having studied at NYU (New York City), and in Bilbao (Spain) at the University of Basque Country. In 2001, he received a 5-year degree (Licenciatura) from the School of Fine Arts at the University of Porto (Portugal). His work is cross-disciplinary by nature, and mostly focused on video, installation, and performance. So far, he has been involved in several art projects, exhibitions, festivals, and screenings in Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, Scotland, Sweden, Russia, and Cyprus) and in the USA (New York, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Atlanta, Detroit, Tucson, and Cincinnati). Teixeira is represented in several collections ( Aberdeen Art Gallery Collection, Scotland, UK; and PLMJ Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal) , and has been the recipient of many awards and grants (the Fulbright / Carmona & Costa Foundation Grant, Gulbenkian / FLAD Grant, Samuel Booth Award, and UCLA Fellowships, among others). He has also studied music, experimental theater, and collaborated extensively with the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Porto, Portugal). Teixeira works as a free-lance video-maker and editor, and has recently taught arts and art history classes (both in Portugal and in the USA).