An abandoned white aluminum door that is reminiscent of my great grandmother’s back door, where I would sit by every night as my family gathered, communed, played, mourned, and celebrated. This modest object is joined to white gallery walls by a simple two by four, seamlessly incorporated into the gallery space. Through the mesh window, a projection plays, distorted by the undulating mesh; two layers of video are formed as the projections cast through the mesh and onto the wall’s surface. The projected material is a mix of archival video footage from Cuba, sugar production on the island, my mother’s and grandmother’s quinces, as well as various footage of ants – some of which were actively performing in the space, constantly working, in an aluminum and acrylic ant farm I had constructed.

Utilizing the documentation of my mother’s quince, a fifteen’s celebration traditional to Latin America, a narrative is formed by following the rites and rituals of the celebration that marks the transition from girlhood to womanhood. Through this video, setting is placed by utilizing my grandmother’s archive and grounding the space with images of her homes at different stages of her life; girlhood, womanhood as she moved into my grandfather’s family home in Cuba, and her first and final home in Miami, the one I was raised in and my grandfather passed away in.

Superimposed on these inherited, familial sourced material is found footage from Cuba, from an internet archive, including schools of fish in aquariums, sugar harvesting and production, ants, and landscapes. Throughout the video piece, there are moments of stillness that ask for patience and to be watched with grace while other moments are hyperactive with content and imagery to meet demands of immediate pleasure consumer culture is so accustomed to.

The labour behind the grandeur is superimposed on the other, fading between the two as ants are used as a sort of mediator of unseen labor. The opulence, pageantry, and pressure in performing within girlhood, performing within proximity to whiteness, and class performativity can be unpacked throughout the entire ordeal.