Coralina Rodriguez Meyer

Visual Description: On a wall painted blue hang three portraits, a triptych depicting a pregnant Nicaraguan-American woman. The left wing panel depicts a ghostly, pregnant mother shrouded beneath a veil, protected by it. The right wing panel depicts a consoled, yet confident pregnant figure with an exposed belly and a dewy, passionate stare directly at the viewer from a greenscreen interior. The central figure gazes skyward in a heavenly light, with the veil covering the mother’s ave maria arms, while exposing a honey glowing pregnant belly.

Curatorial Description: Madrugada Nacimiento: Corona Santa (Catherine Ortiz de Liberty City) is a fertility effigy demonstrating  the vulnerability and strength of Catherine Ortiz from Liberty City Miami FL. The votive triptych depicts an apparition of Catherine’s birth.  The left wing panel depicts a ghostly, pregnant mother shrouded beneath an aqueous veil, whose dignified stance, restful eyelids and protective belly embrace shield her from the viewer and the world beyond. The right wing panel depicts a consoled, yet confident pregnant figure whose scintillating serape cradles a globe like exposed belly and a dewy, passionate stare directly at the viewer from a greenscreen interior. The central figure gazes skyward in a heavenly light, emerging triumphantly from a glistening, translucent cloak covering the mother’s ave maria arms, while exposing a honey glowing pregnant belly. The symbolic stances portray Catherine Ortiz, a Nicaraguan- American pregnant woman and front line worker from a mixed race and mixed immigration status family who prepares to give birth in a Mama Spa Botanica sanctuary. Part of the Linea Negra series documentary photography project (2007-Present), the triptych was taken while the Corona virus pandemic was crowning in Miami in August 2020 during the height of hurricane season. The artist and Catherine developed the image during a full spectrum Mama Spa Botanica workshop where according to the familial labor rituals surviving millenia in the Americas that were combined with syncretic traditions translated from pre-colonial period to today. The Cuarentena or Quarantine tradition offers community support in the form of rest and restoration for the new mother and baby as they recover the first 40 days postpartum. 

Among the syncretic figures combining American, African, Asian, South Pacific and European mythologies, the Corona Santa offers essential, syncretic cultural traditions in the form of prayers to a votive against the veil of overlapping crisis such as environmental disaster or illness. Saint Corona was martyred for professing her Christian faith to the Roman Empire around 165 a.c.e. According to Roman Martyrology, she was arrested in Syria and tied by her feet to the tops of two palm trees which were bent to the ground. When the palms were released in the morning, she was torn apart. Santa Corona is venerated in Austria and Bavaria as the Patron Saint against epidemics, but evolves into a ceremonial figure in the Americas, representing the union of the individual and collective body. 

Culture is medicine in historically redlined neighborhoods in Miami such as Liberty City, when vital practices are central to the survival of immigrant, melanated, Latinx birthing people whose assimilation into US American violence and policy dictates deadly outcomes in delivery rooms. During the Corona Virus pandemic in Miami, hospital births were increasingly dangerous as doulas were banned from hospital wards. Miami is the epicenter of the Reproductive Health Crisis in America for melanated birthing people and babies dying at 6-12 x rate of white women birthing in hospitals. Florida has the highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in the US, and the industrialized world where as of 2023 Journal of American Medicine 228 deaths per 100,000 live births doubled the highest nationwide state rate.  Birthing advocates such as chosen or inherited family members, extended family or doulas have the biggest impact on decreasing birthing complications and death rates amongst immigrant, melanated pregnant people. Recent policy initiatives targeting low income communities of color such as Catherine’s in Liberty City, have created birthing deserts where hospital closures and legal C sections outside of medical settings- reinstate Jim Crow era institutionalized racism and structural violence in medicine. The Mama Spa Botanica project documents in sculpture and photography, the transgressive resilience and community justice work upheld by reproductive and climate justice leaders, along with their melanated neighbors to transform deadly statistics into fertility statues and powerful statutes.

The Linea Negra series photographs (2008-present) documents the inception of gender, power and race structures from slogans, slang, maxims and "old wives tales" to internalized, institutional violence. The works celebrate the melanin line appearing during gestation (most prominent in women of color) as a biological pieta; the first biographical mark on the procreative body and the first sign of our creative humanity.

About

Homestead Everglades swamp born Coralina Rodriguez Meyer is a Miami & Brooklyn based indigenous Andean American (Colombian/Peruvian) Quipucamayoc artist, architect, archive digger and advocate whose work spans 2 decades and 30 countries. Raised Ital & Tinkuy between Miami and the Caribbean, Coralina’s collaborative practice builds civic agency in their unvanquished barrios to resist assimilation and structural violence in American mythology. Coralina is a currently an adjunct professor at Pratt Institute and a Governor’s Island Artist in Residence at Ankhlave Art Alliance. Coralina has held residencies at Bronx Museum AIM and Miami Dade College En Residencia program. Coralina is a current boardmember of Menstrual Market, an advocate of Urban Greenworks tropical farm & ¡Solar Libre!. Coralina is a recent NALAC Advocacy Leadership Institute fellow representing a nationwide delegation of Arts & Culture leaders in Washington DC. Coralina studied painting at MICA and anthropology at Hopkins, hold an Architecture BFA from Parsons and Combined Media MFA from Hunter College. Coralina’s social justice practice transgressing structural violence in American mythology has led to fellowships in international archives across Western & Global South vulnerable histories. Coralina was a research fellow at Syracuse University Florence studying Italian Fascist architecture and urban design, Universitat der Kunst Berlin studying Nazi utopian technology with Hito Steyerl, Museo Machu Picchu Peru and Museo Larco translating Inca Quipus to urban American iconography recently at University of Maryland African Fertility Effigy collection and Kislak Americas collection at University of Miami. Rodriguez Meyer received awards from NALAC, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, NYFA, Laundromat Project and Young Arts. Rodriguez Meyer has exhibited at Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, PAMM, Smithsonian Museum, Kunsthaus Brethanien Berlin, Colonial FL Cultural Heritage Museum, CAC New Orleans, Bronx River Art Center and NYU Tisch. She has been featured in the NY Times, Hyperallergic, Univision, the Guardian, London Review of Books, Art News, Art Forum and Jezebel. Coralina’s recent Mother Molds solo show at University of Maryland (2023) was reviewed in the Washington Post. Coralina’s upcoming Thomas Jefferson University Fall 2024 solo show in Philadelphia mends institutional wounds across ancestries, geographies, genders & generations within the medical infrastructure of a founding father city with the highest health disparities for melanated Americans.