8. Hidden in Plain Sight: Joiri Minaya’s Containers

Image from Joiri Minaya's Containers series, Courtesy of BravinLee.
Image from Joiri Minaya’s Containers series, Courtesy of BravinLee.

Throughout Riverside Park, passersby can search along the pathways for select photos from Joiri Minaya’s Containers series, as part of the Re:Growth program. Containers is a set of photographs, videos, and performances in which women wear bodysuits with prints that mimic tropical nature while interacting with man-made landscapes that appear natural at first. In each piece, the performer is made to adopt a pose that fits with the shape in which the bodysuit has been constructed in. These poses originate from images found while Google searching the term “Dominican women.” In each piece, Minaya directly incorporates her Dominican culture through their jungle and beach inspired backgrounds that reflect her country’s tropical climate. In essence, Containers aims to reflect on the constructions of femininity in our modern society in relation to nature as it is imagined through the male gaze

Additionally, the placement of the performers images within the city’s natural landscape works to bring poignant visual metaphors for for immigration, preservation, camouflage, assimilation, otherness, refusal, and (in)visibility into direct conversation with the New York scene. On display in Riverside Park will be Containers 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7.