November 2021 Artist in Residency: Colectivo Multipolar / Sandra Oviedo

We are excited to share the work of our last resident of the year- Colectivo Multipolar / Sandra Oviedo! They have been quite busy since they accepted the residency back in 2019. Learn more from the interview below with Lucy McDonald.

A packed club with a crowd of raised hands and bodies face the stage under pink lights and a disco ball. TRQPITECA, featuring a performance by artist Liz Mputu at Juniors, Pilsen, July 2016. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

Q & A

Portrait of Colectivo Multipolar / Sandra Oviedo by Jacquelyn Carmen Guerrero a.k.a. CQQCHIFRUIT. Sandra is standing up in front of a wood stool, in the background there are different kinds of palm leaves. She is wearing neon green earring, a yellow chainmail necklace by Rebirth Garments, black shocks and shoes, and a Colectivo Multipolar merch black t-shirt with the text printed on it in neon green that says in Spanish: Por favor, sigamos bailando. Año 2021 (Please, let's keep dancing. Year 2021).

You’ve said that your work focuses on parties as a medium of community representation. How do you use your documentary style to tell the stories of your subjects?

My work focuses on parties as a medium of community representation and opportunity. Parties open up possibilities for bonding, visibility, love, support, and success. They allow us to be more conscious of our creative potential and our capability of supporting ourselves as artists and/or entrepreneurs.

While I may or may not be telling the individual story of my subjects, I am capturing the energy of my subjects in that specific space; a space created for enjoyment, for respect, for catharsis, a space created by us and for us.

My nightlife photography practice is a means of “Documenting Our Story.” Our story encompasses the relationships we build through life - our love for celebration, music, art, party, dance, and the shared experiences of being queer artists. On the dance floor, we create a politicized shared space of self expression through the connections we have as a community of queer, trans, intersex, nonbinary, brown, black, immigrant, and disabled artists. Despite the fears we face everyday, we celebrate our existence -- we write our own history through the way we value our communities. This relationship between community and nightlife turns our parties into political statements.

Having the opportunity to work on this project at Latitude, I will focus on the individual experiences and stories of my subjects at TRQPiTECA during the past three years.

Tell us more about your involvement with TRQPiTECA and the nightlife scene in Chicago.

Soy Mexicana and there are many stories about how I ended up in Chicago. Early experiences meeting queer people and going to LGBTQA+ events from when I visited the city as a teenager allowed me the freedom to explore my sexuality and identity. The most meaningful and long-term relationships in my life have been influenced or happened on the dance floor, because it builds a sense of connection to another person through the beauty of the movement and sound.

However, not all the experiences on the dance floor or nightlife scene have been good. Even though I like the night club life, most of the time it was really upsetting. I was getting tired of feeling harassed on the dance floor. I don’t know if it was because of my height, my identity or if it was systemic.  When I came back to Chicago in the summer of 2016, I experienced TRQPiTECA for the first time. A month later I went for the second time during artist Liz Mputu’s performance. I remember artist Sofia Moreno asked me: “Where is your camera? This is important.” I pulled out my camera, asked Natalie Murillo a.k.a. La Spacer (TRQPiTECA co-founder) if I was allowed to take photos, and she said yes. Those are my first TRQPiTECA photos. 

This project based on TRQPITECA emerges from my experience with its founders.  I have been a witness to their passion, struggle and satisfaction of making TRQPiTECA happen. In 2016 I reconnected with friends, artists, activists, and an amazing community.  To produce a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) experience is not easy. I deeply believe that experiences in the nightlife scene in Chicago have always been relevant for the LGBTQA+ and artistic community. We live through political, emotional, and physical attacks for being who we are, and we have been resilient for so long. The spaces that we create and occupy must be celebrated, documented, and remembered in our collective consciousness.

Note: TRQPiTECA is a Chicago-based artist duo and production company creating space for local and international artists working with queer and tropical aesthetics to experiment and thrive, with tropical, house, and techno dance music as our foundation. Since 2015, co-founders and resident DJs Natalie Murillo (La Spacer) and Jacquelyn Carmen Guerrero (Cqqchifruit) curate this environment through the incorporation of installation art, video, dance music, and performances.

(Left Image) Portrait of Dj/artist CQQCHIFRUIT (Jacquelyn Carmen Guerrero in front of TRQPITECA hand made backdrop; she is wearing a black sequined short dress with multiple flowers in different colors; and a pink sequined hat. She has her hands behind her head, she has a tattoo in her left arm and hair in both armpits. (Right image) Cqqchifruit is leading the dancefloor at TRQPiTECA in a grupal twerking moment. There is joy on the dance floor. Photos by ColectivoMultipolar.

How do you prepare your images so that they can become interactive in a space like a club or warehouse?

Photos are distributed online as well as printed on fabric/durable materials that can last through the rough conditions of clubs and warehouses where they are hung. My installations are interactive, as they are exposed to the public with no restrictions. I definitely would like to work more on installations. The last one I remember was during ICUQTS 2018 (International Chicago Underground Queer Transcendance Symposium) by TRQPiTECA at a warehouse as an alternative event besides Expo Chicago. I build a little space for people to hang out by themselves or with another person, with chill club light on the inside, covered by a silver velvet fabric, and with my photos printed on vinyl hung around the “space.”

What will you be working on during your residency at LATITUDE?

I will be working on a photo book-object (at least 16x24in). This object will have photographs of multiple TRQPiTECA performances accompanied by text obtained from interviews of the various artists, activists, and community members who appear in said photos. I am interested in experimenting with printing the photos on acrylic glass mirror material, reminiscent of a disco ball and integrating it into the book-object as the cover of the book.  This project will be called “Documenting Our Story.”

With the curatorial guidance of a Latitude professional, I will select the photos that I want to include in the photo book-object.  I would also like to print in the lab medium sized individual photographs as tactile objects to use while conducting interviews with the subjects in the photos. I would show these people the photos and interview them about how they felt at that  moment the photos were taken to obtain their testimony and opinion of the relevance of what was happening at that time. 

I am excited to meet passionate and knowledgeable individuals who can guide and assist me in making this project a reality. I would like to work with the Lab Director and Lab Technician to experiment with different types of paper and materials that will make this photo book-object an archival document of the time I was part of in this life. I believe in the power of archives, documentation, presencial witnesses of an event, and leaving a record for future generations. 

During the time of the residency I will reach out to the Latitude Professional Team to learn more about printing on fabrics, different paper, editing processes, ways to curate my photography work and ways to make this book-object the central piece of an exhibition/installation at Latitude.

I will also include the work title “Club Nostalgia” a series of instagram posts that I was sharing every Friday after March 2020, the month of the very last TRQPiTECA event before nightlife venues were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

I am planning an event to show my photography work and two different video documentaries related to TRQPiTECA, and a talk with three artists who have been part of my documentation. The tentative day is Friday November 19, 2021. Please follow Latitude and my social media @colectivomultipolar for more updates.

(Left image) Dj Cqqchifruit is behind the dj booth, dj La Spacer is on the TRQPiTECA dancefloor, it is a packed club night with a crowd of raised hands and everyone is dancing. (Right image) Portrait of Dj/producer La Spacer in front of a TRQPITECA handmade backdrop. She is wearing a black long sleeve t-shirt with TRQPiTECA letters printed in gold ink. She is wearing her signature glasses and opalite hoops (hangers). Her hands are inside her pants pockets. Photos by ColectivoMultipolar.

You’ve said that you install your images within the DIY spaces that you are capturing. Do you ever show the work in traditional gallery settings? If so, how does that affect the meaning of the work?

The nightlife documentation process starts with exploration of the spaces we inhabit and transform (DIY venues). I feel like the photographs/my work with TRQPiTECA belong to the same spaces and their energy. What do you feel at a DIY space or club dance floor? Do you feel the energy? Do you feel connected? I want you to experience my work under that feeling of connection and enjoyment, I want you to feel the music. A traditional gallery setting can also be transformed, it will be a different experience and I would love to see that; the bright lights of a gallery brings me back to the feeling when a venue turns on the lights so people can leave the space. I do not like that feeling; I always need time to process my experience.

What are you currently reading, watching, listening to?

A group of people surround a stage as a performer wearing a green and black outfit holds their hand out to the audience. TRQPITECA’s LQQKS FASHION NIGHT featuring An Authentic Skidmark dress by Kaleigh Moynihan, and performance artist Rosé Hernández, Juniors, Pilsen, October 2016. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

I am watching Grey’s Anatomy (Season 13), I need to catch up. I am listening to sad songs on repeat all the time: Where Does the Good Go (Tegan and Sara :)… but I always go back to La Spacer MixCloud to feel the energy of my soul and body; Dr. Rubinstein; Lil Nas X; Luisa Almaguer; Annika Wolfe; Girl Ultra and one of my favorite radio shows Domingos en Vocalo. I am reading Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong.

A group of people surround a stage as a performer wearing a green and black outfit holds their hand out to the audience. TRQPITECA’s LQQKS FASHION NIGHT featuring An Authentic Skidmark dress by Kaleigh Moynihan, and performance artist Rosé Hernández, Juniors, Pilsen, October 2016. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.