Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art
From the Curators: In my Mouth the Words are Melting is the first presentation of all three works from artist Sofía Córdova’s dawn chorus trilogy, an epic series of videos and installations. The dawn_chorus trilogy reconsiders the past’s revolutionary potential; scrutinizes capitalism’s historic depredations against the Global South and their present day climatic blowback; and explores the promises and failures of technology and ritual in a post-apocalyptic world. Sofía Córdova is a Puerto Rican-born, California-based interdisciplinary artist who regularly makes work with performance, music, video, photography, sculpture, and installation. Drawing from literature and poetry to pop culture and music, Córdova conveys a plurality of lived experiences in her works that help to guide us as we face a changing relationship to our planet.
Moving from a fantastical history of our planet 500 years in the future in dawn_chorus i: LAPREKUELA (2016–2021), to a personal narrative of Puerto Rico’s recent past in dawn_chorus ii: el niágara en bicicleta, to the array of refugee experiences in contemporary California in dawn_chorus iii: the fruit they don’t have here, the disparate stories are connected through repeating imagery of birds, the presence of fruit and flora, and Córdova’s own brand of magical realism. The trilogy is a docu-fantastical synthesis of stories that weave together issues of climate change, systemic violence, capitalism, technology, colonialism, and migration. In addition, Córdova’s installation includes costumes, sculptures, paintings produced by project participants, and sets related to each work from the trilogy.
This exhibition is part of BICA’s 2022-23 exhibition series: Recovering Futures.
