LaExotica

La Exotica

La Exotica is a performance that examines cultural identity and various constructions of otherness. Simone de Beauvoir argued that woman is set up as the Other of man. Masculinity is therefore socially constructed as the universal norm by which social ideas about humanity are defined, discussed and legislated against.

-Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being… She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.’ – Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex.-

La Exotica builds a mountain of flour. Then moves towards and hovers in an almost ritualistic repetitive motion. La Exotica mimics the daily routine and cycles in the kitchen expressionless, extrapolating it as shear movement. She builds her persona slowly adorning herself with plastic fruits and a long dress built of chiles. La Exotica slowly gets through a bag of onions, slicing until the her audience cries.