Dirty Indian

Jorge Luis Morejon's Dirty Indian.

MOCA /La Pocha Nostra. Tucson Arizona. August 11,2007

Dirty Indian was the result of a work in progress. During the performance for MOCA in Tucson, I decided to work with the Taino character from my previous Wet Feet/Dry Feet piece and create a dialogue between the image I presented to the audience, (a sort of hollywoodian savage), the historical stereotype of the “Indian” as dirty and stinky, and the invasive transformation of the hollywoodian Indian into a dirty and stinky one, through covering my skin with layers of mayonnaise, peanut butter, ketchup, mustard, fruit jams, chocolate butter, etc. The performance was durational. It lasted the full three hours, during which I kept on applying layers and layers of these very industrialized eatable products. The result was not at all glamorizing or sensual, even though I played with those problematic elements, on the contrary the hollywoodian Indian became gradually the historically stereotypically undesirable one. I presented the repulsive and disgusting site of a Taino erased by food brands, consumerism, artificial flavors, odors and colors, once again defeated not by weapons, but by a culture of comodification.