PDF We Surrender Manifesto

The Day We Surrender to the Air
A Project by Antonio Jose Guzman
Special Thanks to:
Elvia Jaramillo, Susana Jaramillo Nieto, Shoshana Iten, Roef Langedijk, Siri Driessen,
Wietske Langedijk, Sara Langedijk, Regina Peferoen, Laura Peferoen, Rogier Fokke,
Antonio “Pitu” Rivera, Armin Kane, Rachel Anthonia Verschoor, Antonio Jaramillo
Reyes, Delano Mac Andrew, Femi Dawkins aka Jimmy Rage, Saskia Ten Holt, Fabrice
Schomberg, Tia Ryan, Irene Beukers, Suzanne Vis, Jaime Chandler, Dara Ghahremani,
Bibi Panhuizen, Valentina Catena, Niels Albers, Peter Jan Jong, Catalino Guerrero,
Hernan Guerrero, Jose Guzman, La Casona, Jona de Bokx, David Jablonowski, Friso
Ten Holt, Salomon Vergara, Maria del Pilar Blanco, Alejandra Pinzon, Evelyn Raat, Jose
Angel, Murillo, Charlotte van Otterloo, Oliva Guzman Muñoz, Flavio Guzman Muñoz,
Ton van Beers, Liboria Jaramillo, Alejandro Guzman, Jenny Villarreal, Pepe Villareal,
Diecke Bentum, Mir Rodriguez, Corina Schaub, Anouk Piket, Gloriela Villareal, Claas
Wernicke, Lidia Jaramillo, Eva Schmitz, Oumar Mbengue Atakosso, Monica Nador,
JAMAC Jardim, Miriam São Paulo, Laurent Zuijdwijk, Iris Koppe, Walo Araujo, Adrienne
Samos, Felipe Peres Calheiros, Herman van Haaren, Ischa Stuart.
More Info:
www.thedaywesurrender.com
Graphic Design:
Anna de Jong
The Day we Surrender to The Air has been made possible through the support of the
Netherlands foundation for Visual Art, Design and Architecture.
© 2009 Guzman Films, Antonio Jose Guzman.
www.aguzman.com
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THE DAY
WE SURRENDER
TO THE AIR
A project by Antonio Jose Guzman
“A transatlantic
diary, an exchange
of memories and
expectations for
the future.”
The Day We Surrender to the Air.
The Day We Surrender to the Air is a multi-media art project in which I investigate
the connection between migration, Diaspora and gravity. The connection between
these three subjects will be explained in a trans-cultural installation that demonstrates the dialogue between origin, ethnicity and cultural plurality.
The world has experienced thousands of years of migration, starting from migrating
nomads in the Fertile Crescent and east-Africa, to the medieval Migration Period
and modern day political and economical migration. In The Day We Surrender to the
Air, I use myself as an example of the migration between the so-called Old and New
Worlds. My identity is the product of my ancestors’ traveling experiences through
Polynesia, Eurasia, Mesopotamia, Africa and eventually to America and Europe. This
reveals that my genetic identity is based on the various Diasporas of my ancestors,
and thus on the decisions they made in migrating to some place or to another. For
this reason a voyager will symbolize the travels, migrations and Diasporas of my
ancestors.
Through the African Ancestry Organization in Washington D.C. and the National
Geographic Genographic Project, two organizations that are specialized in DNA
research, I will obtain my DNA analysis. The results of this analysis will help me to
form my genetic map that will reveal the route my DNA covered through different
continents over the past 200,000 years.
The project will consist of diverse materials such as photos, videos, texts and sounds
from places along these routes. Visual and sound material from people living in the
places where my DNA is from is extremely important. The videos and documentaries
are made up of multiple histories and question my position as an Afro-Latin-American immigrant in a postcolonial society and ultimately in the contemporary world.
A documentary film will be made of the whole journey, as well as an online data
visualization where new family members and anyone else interested in the project
can follow the process, contact me and interact with one another.
This book traces the project The Day We Surrender to the Air from its conception
through the various stages with different images, sketches and texts that represent
the theory and analysis of the project – both as an installation and as a philosophical
social environment.
The Day We Surrender to the Air is subsidized by the Netherlands Foundation for
Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (known in the Netherlands as Fonds BKVB).
www.thedaywesurrender.com
Antonio Jose Guzman
Audiovisual Artist & Documentary Filmmaker
www.aguzman.com
“I must surrender myself
to what surrounds me,
unite myself with its clouds
and rocks, in order to be
what I am. I need solitude
in order to communicate
with nature.”
Caspar David Friedrich
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“No man can know
where he is going unless he knows exactly
where he has been and
exactly how he arrived
at his present place.”
Maya Angelou
...We saw Chagres under peculiar circumstances. At the time of our arrival there the
California fever had reached its extreme height,
but was still raging with unabated fury. Every
day some steamer or sailing craft from our
Atlantic cities, and occasionally one of the latter
class from some French or English port, would
enter and disgorge its mass of eager life upon
the sandy point, and hurry back again for a fresh
cargo. I doubt if ever slave ships, in the palmiest
days of that hellish traffic, were crowded to the
extent of some of the Chagres packets during
this period of the California Immigration.
It was a strange and exciting scene to look upon.
Frequently after coffee in the morning I used to
stroll down to the point, and watching my
chance for a seat upon the piazza of the Empire
City Hotel, would light my cigar, and gaze for
hours unsated upon that wonderful kaleidoscope
of human life. No romance that I ever read
possessed for me half the interest of that ever
changing scene. In the forms of all nations, ages,
and conditions of life were represented...
A story of life on the Isthmus (1853)
Author: Fabens, Joseph Warren, 1821-1875
Subject: Panama - Description and travel
Amelia
Borbua
1881
Francisca
Rangel
1882
Justina
Vazquez
1906
Trinidad
Pinzon
1900
Valentin
Nieto
1878
Susana
Nieto
1923
Catalino
Nieto
1885
Faustina
Cordova
1858
Elvia
Raquel
Jaramillo
Nieto
1948
Teodora
Reyes
1883
Jose
Adelardo
Reyes
1860
Oliva
Marina
Munoz
1923
Antonio
Jaramillo
Reyes
1913
Juan
Enrique
Munoz
1901
Flavio
Guzman
Muñoz
1945
Antonio
Jose
Guzman
Jaramillo
Silverio
Vazquez
1878
Maria
Caballero
1880
Jose
Guzman
Caballero
1906
Dugracio
Guzman
1875
Cresencia
Vega
1860
Reyes
Jaramillo
1882
...Then there was this Russian boy in a club
that started to talk to me in his own language.
‘sistrjonka’, he said, ‘little sister’. He was totally
convinced that we shared our place of birth.
His suggestion made me doubt about the origins
of my grandmothers’ strange surname. Maybe
features tell more about your identity than artificially invented surnames?
For a long time I’ve felt a vague longing to visit
Russia. When I was in high school I liked to
listen to Russian music, and even tried to decipher some Cyrillic. The boy must have been right.
I’m a Russian-Egyptian.
I was satisfied with my new identities. Unlike
Maya Angelou I found it a very pleasing feeling
to belong to something elusive, something that
was far and old and that I thus could not completely understand. At the same time I could
easily select all the qualities with whom I wanted
to be associated with, and neglect those with
whom I didn’t. I did not have to obtain any of
these qualities myself. Because of my genetic
background, they were just there. In this way I
could have an identity that was based on stereotypes, but was on itself not stereotypical at all...
Sistrjonka (2009)
Author: Siri Driessen