"In an artist statement on her website, multidisciplinary artist Joiri Minaya describes her work as a 'reassertion of Self, and an exercise of unlearning, decolonizing, and exorcizing imposed histories.' Born in New York City and raised in the Dominican Republic, Minaya seeks to sabotage the gaze and regain agency through her work in performance, installation, sculpture, and photography. In her ongoing series Cloaking (2019–), Minaya covers colonialist, figural statues in vibrant, tropical fabric. The bodies of monumentalized men such as Juan Ponce de León and Christopher Columbus become less recognizable when bound in body bags that beckon closer historical looking..."
