Transcending Perception is a series of public sculptures designed and created by the artist Josemar Gonzalez and Diana Cervera, that were selected to form part of San Diego’s NTC’s Installations at the Station, a former US Naval Base. The content for the pieces was generated through a series of participatory workshops led by Diana Cervera and featuring local poets, community leaders, multidisciplinary artists, in collaboration with The AjA Project, a San Diego based organization.
From political cartoons to early cinema, dominant media streams have historically played a central role in crafting normalized perceptions about people and communities of color within the American imagination; furthermore, informing who is considered part of the imagined America and who is deemed other. Transcending Perception was created with the intention of ‘returning the gaze’ on both current and historical representations of those who are often excluded or misrepresented in dominant media.
The sculptures were built between the borderlands of San Diego and Tjuana. Standing at 9 feet tall and lighting up at sunset, these portals serve as a metaphor for the idea of an entry point to stories of migration, community, and identity. As the audience walks through the doors, and reads the stories, they are invited to think critically about which doors they have opened and which doors they have closed, whether physically or metaphorically.
The images and stories depicted on the doors center the faces and voices of the collaborating artists and the communities they represent. Creating a monument of love and solidarity among them.
The workshops consisted of a political cartoon gallery walk which showcased newspaper clippings, segregation law, and executive orders. Jim Crow Era Caricatures, EO9066, 1822 Chinese Exclusion Act, and images of Indian Boarding schools, served as analytical departure point for the group to reflect on the role of representation in shaping popular imagination and the inclusion or exclusion of communities of color within the United States both past and present. Through a series of activities, Story Circles and Mirrors and Windows the group reflected on their own lived experiences in relationship to power, struggle inclusion and exclusion. As participants shared they found entry points into the experiences of one another, common ground, and new perspective.
*Story Circles and Mirrors and Windows: Activity developed in the 1960s by John O’ Neal, Gilbert Moses,Denise Nicholas and Doris Derby of the Free Southern Theater.
