"OUTGROWN LABELS" - Clea Anaïs & Jozer Guerrero
"SILENT SCREAM" & "ANTIDOTE" - Jozer Guerrero & Clea Anaïs
These works by Clea Anaïs & Jozer Guerrero, were created for Connecting Perspectives, a collaborative interdisciplinary series, produced and presented by the Social Distancing Festival and the Consulate General of Canada in Denver. Drawing inspiration from the theme “Art Today,” 26 artists who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Colour (13 artists in Canada and 13 artists in the United States) were selected, paired up, and tasked with creating new collaborative works of art, for presentation for the Social Distancing Festival.
Two pieces by Jozer Guerrero & Clea Anaïs were woven together from shards of sharp emotions, present visions, and rememberings. We let these sentiments rise from deep pools, then sorted them like puzzle pieces and distilled inherent themes.
There were more ideas, but ultimately we centered around three central themes.
In creating the first piece “Outgrown Labels”, we pondered and wrote collaboratively, juxtaposing personal experiences into a melded creative writing.
The second piece highlights contrasts: the loud vs the quiet, our external vs internal worlds, with Jozer writing part one “The Silent Scream” and Clea responding in part two with “Antidote”.
The everyday complexities of collaborating, between two cities in different countries, between cultures, were overcome by the common glue of the human experience, and a shared appreciation for creativity. This bond extended into the collaborative creation of music and visual art to accompany these spoken word pieces.
Jozer
Jozer is a poet/actor/lead singer for Xicano Funk band Los Mocochetes. Jozer is also the Associate director for Su Teatros Cultural Arts and Education Program as well as the Artistic Director of youth theater company Teatro VolARTE. His work has been featured on HBO, Univision, MTV, PBS, Ted Talks, and American theater Magazine
Clea Anaïs
Clea Anaïs’ compositions center on two things: a multifaceted artistic sensibility, and an emotional intelligence as sharp as a shard of bright-coloured crystal. A multiethnic artist, raised by a Mauritian dancer and a UK painter, Clea currently creates in Mi’kmaq territory. Using voice within soundscaped music, often centered around the cello, Clea taps into vulnerable moments, new thought, and nostalgic memory.