Caroline Garcia

www.carolinegarcia.com.au
Artist Bio

Caroline Garcia (b. 1988, Australia)

Choose Your Fighter (video still), 2020
Virtual reality video, colour, sound
3'24"

This is a work-in-progress that features an indigenous blow-gun called a sumpit, from the Philippines. This work can also be viewed as a 360 video: link.

Flygirl, 2017
Performance installation
32'

Live performance dance installation developed and recorded at the EMPAC Residency 2016/17, facilitated by Australia Council for the Arts

Force of a .22 Calibre Bullet, 2019
Performance [pangalay nails (Philippines, Macbook, projector]
15'

Presented for Movement Research at Judson Church, curated by Pelenakeke Brown on behalf of the Artists of Color Council. Photo: Courtesy of Movement Research

Imperial Reminiscence (video still), 2018
Single-channel digital video, colour, sound
10'15"

Commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia for Primavera 2018: Young Australian Artists

Kamayan – A True Way of Eating, 2019
Installation

This event was hosted and conceptualized by Garcia (pictured in the middle) for the Creative Time Summit X Dinner Sessions at 41 Gallery in The Cooper Union in 2019. Catering was provided by Tito Rad’s Grill (Woodside, Queens). Photo: Madison Voelkel

PrimeTime (installation view), 2019
Series of 3 - inkjet prints on paper, singlechannel datamosh video, computer-cut adhesive vinyl, inkjet on foam core
Dimensions variable

Exhibited as part of The Fullness of Time at Verge Gallery in Sydney, Australia in collaboration with JD Reforma. Photo: Zan Wimberley

Queen of the Carabao (video still), 2018
Two-channel digital video, colour, sound
30'

Supported by the CreateNSW Rapid Response Grant (Australia)

Reading of the Xenofeminist Manifesto, 2018
Performance Installation [blowgun (Philippines), TV monitors, MacBook, balloons, speaker, OBS (live green-screen program), plinth, foam core]
60'

Presented at Aronson Gallery, commissioned by the Vera List Center for Art and Politics' Seminar No. 2 of Freedom of Speech: A Curriculum for Studies into Darkness Series, curated by Gabriela López Dena's program, 'Feminist Manifestos.' Photo: Mario Molina

The Vitrine of Dancing Culture, 2018
Performance installation with Nintendo Wii, ‘Just Dance’ 2015-2018, HD TV Monitor, LED Lights

Presented at Art Central Hong Kong, commissioned by 4A Center for Contemporary Asian Art. Photo: Jacquie Manning

Untitled, 2020
(Prototype, robotic arm, pangalay nail, chroma-key paint, arduino)

This is a prototype of a work-in-progress that attempts to translate ‘pangalay,’ a traditional dance from the Southern Philippines into robotic choreography.

Artist Statement

Caroline Garcia is a culturally promiscuous, interdisciplinary artist working across live performance and video through a hybridized aesthetic of cross-cultural dance, ritual practice, and new media.

Her practice is shaped by alterity. In her work, she centers peripheral bodies by assuming the role of shape shifter – sliding into the gaps between cultures, experiences of otherness, and timeless clichés of exotic femininity. Taking an intersectional approach to contemporary dance, Caroline applies the politics of diasporic identity to interrogate representation through a lens of cultural piracy. Her practice is concerned with reimagining forgotten choreographies and alternate ways of viewing images of the past that eschew classical myths, paying attention to liminal spaces and the mimetic capacities of the Filipina archetype.

Caroline’s works often comprises performance and video installations. As an extension of movement research, she approaches the composition of objects and construction of text through the notion of expanded choreography. Her practice traverses a highly personalized aggregation of distinct systems that encompass live-green screening, botany, robotics, poetry, and virtual reality, whilst digitally sampling popular culture and colonial imagery with humor and jocosity.