Awilda Rodríguez Lora, Sustento
The culmination of a virtual residency that unfolded before and during the pandemic, Sustento asks: What is sustenance and why is it important?
The Box
In the spring of 2019, Puerto Rican artist Awilda Rodríguez Lora came to the Wex and posed this question during a memorable performative talk. That inquiry was both timely and prescient. Puerto Rico was still recovering from the devastation of 2017’s Hurricane María, and the world was a year away from a cascade of tragedies brought on by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Following that talk, Rodríguez Lora’s relationship with the Wex continued with a virtual Performing Arts residency and performances. Working with a constellation of collaborators in Ohio State’s Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD) and the Wex’s Department of Performing Arts, she continued to investigate the question of sustento or sustenance. The video Sustento is the culmination of this project. It features Rodríguez Lora performing in the Wex’s Performance Space, while an animated avatar twin is created in ACCAD’s motion capture lab.
Sustento poses the universal question of how we humans can sustain ourselves in the face of constant demands and oppression. Rodríguez Lora reveals that sustento is human connection, family, action, community, the body, action, bread, water, our loves, love, impulse, movement, and energy. It is intangible but necessary.
Presented both in Spanish with English subtitles and in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. (21:13 mins. HD video with 5.1 sound)
“We’re all trying to push through, to keep doing the things we love, or keep loving, or being there for somebody. SUSTENTO is what keeps us moving.”
