Day Dreaming / Soñando despierta

Inscriptions

Signed, dated, and inscribed, in graphite, lower margin left to right: 15/25 Day Dreaming/Soñando Despierta, SCHEREZADE 10

Label

Scherezade García’s print depicts a dreaming female figure at the bottom of image, projecting Dominican island motifs onto the concrete and industrialized spaces of Manhattan. Planting the plantain branch into iconic Central Park, Garcia claims New York City as an “outer borough” of the Dominican Republic (DR). This spectral figure also marks the reconfiguration of DR racial identity, where Dominicans are considered non-Black in neighboring Haiti, but upon entering the US are wedged into the Black/White binary.

Unlike García’s aerial view, the foundational image within Alex Guerrero’s Vista Psicotrópica is a New York cityscape, a black-and-white photograph taken from the artist’s apartment. In this imaginative depiction of Dominican York living, Guerrero superimposes a small blue house surrounded by tall sprouting grasses, accompanied by a raincloud. Although the image is playful, Guerrero’s image of the humility of a Caribbean home disrupts the iconic skyline and subverts the rigidity of New York’s architecture.

These prints were produced through the inaugural project of the Dominican York Proyecto GRÁFICA (DYPG) a project focused on expressions of dominicanidad and the lived experience of diaspora in New York.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

A sleeping female figure summons memories of her homeland by dreaming them onto a topographical map of New York City. Dominican artist Scherezade García superimposes blue and white plantain trees and red plantain-shaped airplanes onto the map of the city to reassert an altered geographical configuration, merging the Dominican Republic and New York City into the same spatial plane. Rather than a legal claim to land or property, this countermapping strategy claims belonging and placemaking for the Dominican diaspora, resisting the borders of the nation-state.

From the 2024 exhibition [Un]Mapping: Decolonial Cartographies of Place, curated by Beatriz Yanes Martinez, Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow, Curatorial and Exhibitions

Course History

ARTH 48.06, LACS 32, Borderlands Art and Theory, Tatiana Reinoza, Spring 2019

First Year Student Enrichment Program, Israel Reyes, Summer 2021

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

LACS 80.02/AAAS 90.01/GOVT 84.06, Identity and Power, Lisa Baldez, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

SART 20/SART 71, Drawing II/Drawing III, Jack Wilson, Fall 2022

Latino Studies 44.01, Latino Roots and Transitions, Thamyris Almeida, Winter 2023

Art History 40.05, Latino Studies 12.01, Print the Revolution, Mary Coffey, Spring 2023

Art History 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2024

Studio Art 27.01, Printmaking I, Abra Ancliffe, Spring 2024

Anthropology 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Charis Boke, Summer 2024

Exhibition History

[Un]Mapping: Decolonial Cartographies of Place, Harteveldt Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 8 -November 3, 2024.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 11, 2022.

Provenance

Coronado Print Studio, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2019.

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Subjects