carolyn castaño

In Cali es Cali, or Cali is Cali, in the Orange County Museum of Art Expand series, I play with two popular expressions: the first, Cali es Cali—an expression from my father’s hometown of Cali, Colombia, which is akin to the American adage, “There is no place like home;” the second is a nickname for California: “Cali”—a term popularized by LL Cool J in his 1988 hit song, “Going Back to Cali.” As a point of departure and inspiration, I use my late father’s photographic archive—comprised of 4,000 photographs, films, and videos—to consider the fragility and ephemerality of memory and identity. The photographs in the exhibition are juxtaposed next to drawings of the landscape (inspired by Von Humboldt’s landscapes and botanical studies) and considers the ways in which the land figures in the trajectory and memory of the migrant/ immigrant.

Personajes, 2020 ( Enlarged ink jet prints of family passport and identification photos) 

Objetos de Uso Cotiniano, Pa Mantener La Memoria de Adonde Vinimos y Pa Donde Nos Vamos, Traidos de Un Lugar Y Llevados  Otro ( Objects for Daily Use, Brought From One Place to Another, So That We Remember We Came From) 2020 Table Top Vitrine

Objetos de Uso Cotiniano, Pa Mantener La Memoria de Adonde Vinimos y Pa Donde Nos Vamos, Traidos de Un Lugar Y Llevados  Otro.
( Objects for Daily Use, Brought From One Place to Another, So That We Remember We Came From) 2020 Table Top Vitrine  with cacerola
(saucepan), cardholder, carriol ( satchel) shoes, passports, vaccination record, glasses, pink and ivory doily, orange and brown doily, camera, Thomas Bros. map