2021 Grad Show

Janira Moncayo

AUArts Grad Show Screen Shot 2021-05-14 at 16.11.45

Media Arts

Janira Moncayo is a video artist, whose work reclaims the commodified and stereotyped “Latina” identity, decolonizing mainstream media's unidimensional tropes. Her videos critique racial erasure and misrepresentation, but most importantly celebrate ethnicity and race as complex and diverse identities, each person embodies as their own.

Beauty Standards The Spicy-Latina trope has stereotyped Latinas as a sexual temptress, characterized by their provocative body and aggression. In the safe space of a closed call, women challenge the reductiveness of the stereotype and the unrealistic expectations placed on physical appearance and relationships.
Motherhood A critique of Marianismo, a social concept that compares women to the selfless Virgin Mary, and a redefinition of the relationship between womanhood and motherhood.
Define Latina Women openly discuss how they reclaim their femininity and Latin-American identity, inviting the audience to evaluate their bias.

Cosas de Chicas (Girl Talk)

Cosas de Chicas (Girl Talk) deconstructs the term Latina in a series of three video essays: Beauty Standards, Motherhood, and Define Latina. Through dialogue, women of different backgrounds, racial identities and sexualities decolonize Western stereotypes and traditional gender roles in Latin-America. The series advocates for the visibility and inclusion of experiences of women of color in media. Recorded during lockdown, the conversation emphasizes that advocacy is atemporal and adaptable.

The video series is available on the artist's Vimeo.

Cosas de Chicas (Girl Talk)
Beauty Standards The Spicy-Latina trope has stereotyped Latinas as a sexual temptress, characterized by their provocative body and aggression. In the safe space of a closed call, women challenge the reductiveness of the stereotype and the unrealistic expectations placed on physical appearance and relationships.
Cosas de Chicas (Girl Talk) AUArts Grad Show Screen Shot 2021-05-20 at 22.49.21
Motherhood A critique of Marianismo, a social concept that compares women to the selfless Virgin Mary, and a redefinition of the relationship between womanhood and motherhood.
Cosas de Chicas (Girl Talk) AUArts Grad Show Screen Shot 2021-05-20 at 23.49.15
Define Latina Women openly discuss how they reclaim their femininity and Latin-American identity, inviting the audience to evaluate their bias.
A cycle that starts with xenophobic rhetoric fueling irrational fear, and results into racial profiling, micro-aggressions and physical attacks against targeted minorities.

Xenophobia is not a Symptom

Found-footage film that examines the patterns of discriminatory associations between ethnicity and disease during the 2000s, using mainstream media material from the 2003 SARS, 2009 AH1N1 Influenza, 2014 Ebola and the latest, 2020 COVID-19.

Xenophobia is not a Symptom
A cycle that starts with xenophobic rhetoric fueling irrational fear, and results into racial profiling, micro-aggressions and physical attacks against targeted minorities.
Award reception photograph, where I am cut off. A reflection of losing yourself in a favor of colonized approval.
A series of elementary school English tests.
Admittance to the United States, prior to arrival in Canada.
Goodbye's at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport.

Identity Erasure

Through the eyes of an immigrant in Canada, Identity Erasure reflects on the progression from a passive receiver of media stereotypes, into an active oppressor of my Ecuadorian culture while living abroad. Internalized racism did not originate in my destination country, but was a result of slowly, building unconscious bias.

Identity Erasure AUArts Grad Show Identity_Erasure_FullSize_Still
Award reception photograph, where I am cut off. A reflection of losing yourself in a favor of colonized approval.
Identity Erasure AUArts Grad Show Screen Shot 2021-05-21 at 00.47.57
A series of elementary school English tests.
Identity Erasure AUArts Grad Show Screen Shot 2021-05-21 at 00.49.48
Admittance to the United States, prior to arrival in Canada.
Identity Erasure AUArts Grad Show JaniraMoncayo.IdentityErasure.2020_1
Goodbye's at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport.

This site may contain artworks with provocative content that some viewers may find uncomfortable or upsetting. AUArts supports a culture of non-censorship and ongoing conversations about contemporary art.