Charo Oquet

Dominican born, Miami based, Artist

I am multidisciplinary artist, curator and cultural producer concerned with new narratives and subjectivities, historical context being addressed today that recognize the inclusion of suppressed histories, communities, and identities. I prefer to work with people and their habits, symbols, and social rituals. My artistic practice encompasses more than being a means of production – I make things (sculpture, installation, painting, photography & video), but co-equal to my creation of physical objects is my research practice, my work as an arts administrator and founding director of Edge Zones, and endeavors as a mentor and collaborator. These things are not tangential to, or “in addition to” my own art making, they are as much my artistic practice as making a sculpture, taking a photograph, or designing an installation.

My practice yielded a body of work thoroughly informed by the anthropological and ethnographic gaze I cast on Western society in general, and Afro-Caribbean society in particular inspired by my own Dominican background. Folk or ‘popular’ culture attracts my interest because it combines wit, inventiveness, and creativity in a way that distinguishes it clearly from mass culture. As an artist, I grapple with ideas of immigration and identity and decolonizing narratives. I see my current work as an opportunity to combine my exploration of heritage with performance and community engagement practice.

My current projects, encompasses all of these facets of my art making – installation and sculpture, research, mentorship, curation, and multi-media and interdisciplinary practice. It is also a project I hope will embody the idea of “Radical Optimism.” I seek to investigate the political and spiritual structures underlying contemporary urban culture through the use of everything from internet-age aesthetics to traditional music performance.