Gina Goico

LovingSUITS: Memory, love, and temporary communities.

“What is your first memory of love?” is the opening question posed to the participants of the LovingSUITS project. This question often brings a moment of silence – what is our first memory of love? - “Amor familiar , not romantic love.” I tend to clarify. We have understood that whenever someone speaks of love it is in reference to romantic bonds. I chose to focus on family, since I am interested in seeing how those initial memories might construct our concept of love and relationships in society. Within these spaces there is always a possibility to connect to other kinds of love– memories of the first time one feels overjoyed through the senses, feeling embodied through taste, touch.

Through engagement with these initial memories, I aim to explore how the micro (personal, interpersonal) is tied to larger systems within society. What happens when we start digging into our family dynamics? Do we see a clear connection between those inter-familiar dynamics and overall Dominican culture? What are the silences, resistances and practices that protect Black and feminized individuals, which teach us how to survive? Or, how much of the systemic issues we see across our culture permeate our understanding of love and care within our personal relationships in family spaces? LovingSUITS stems from my engagement with bell hook’s All about love and Bessel Van Der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score. Throughout the creation of this archive, I engaged naturally with both texts.

I also engage with Lorgia García-Peña’s The Borders of Dominicanidad, looking at the contra-dictions, silences, and consciousness from the participants’ narratives. I also propose the borders of performing/embodying Dominican womanhood, expanding upon García-Peña’s definitions of Dominicanidad. This archive centers feminized folks , the capturing of undertold stories (72-73), and puts forward reflections on trauma and liberation (55-68) all in dialogue with Aurora Levins Morales’ Medicine Stories.

I chose to look at these connections from the memories of love since we are already in constant bombardment of trauma. Aurora Levins Morales says in Medicine Stories that “The culture that inequality creates around itself is saturated with pain, confusion, alienation […] an inability to name the abuses we experience, perpetrate and witness on a daily basis”(57). Why would I then, if I want to look at trauma, necessarily expose those clear connections? And I call these connections of the interpersonal to the system traumatic, because of the histories of oppression and exploitation.Unfortunately, especially within art spaces, the consumption of our pain and marketing of our victimization are profitable. I am not interested in white collectors, nor people who might be oppressors, decorating their walls with our pain as a badge of “allyship.” If something is to be showcased, let it be coded enough that our stories can be read and understood only if we have the lived experiences. Let us see ourselves through love. I agree with Levins Morales proposal of re-creating our humanity through retelling of our stories, putting forward our sense of beings who are “full of dignity and courage.” (57) I aim to do this through these explorations.

The site of love, within our first memory, allows for us to reflect upon a fleeting concept that continues to be mystified within our society as bell hooks says on her reflections in All about Love (P4). Even if we do not know necessarily what love is “[…] we yearn for love […] even when we lack hope that it really can be found”(xvii). If we follow hooks proposal of having a commonly understood definition of love, and the yearning we possess, we can start working for the project of re-creation of our humanity Levins Morales proposes. Can this happen when we reflect within temporary communities on our experiences of love? Could we reflect on our own ideas when engaging with the stories told within these temporary communities? These are the questions I pose and am interested in exploring with this mini archive.

Mini Archive:
A call, a temporary community, narratives, and reactions.

I have transcribed 4 different answers participants gave to the question “What is your first memory of love, and how has this shaped how you measure love with others?” for this archive [Transcriptions]. These answers pertain to the first major interview I did for the LovingSUITS project on September 8th, 2019. I had a total of 8 Dominican women who lived in New York City and in New Jersey participating on this group interview. The participants came to the project through the open call I did on my Instagram account on August 2019 – Which asked:

“Are you a Dominican woman in NYC? Are you interested in being part of a new art project/video I am making? Read below – Interviewing Dominican women around the topics of self-love, society, and interpersonal relationships. Interviews will be recorded and anonymous unless otherwise agreed upon with the participant.” [Image 1 on mini archive]

For this event I brought some of the soft sculptures I had made for LovingSUITS. Interconnected hands, made of soft cloth, anointed with rosemary, lavender, and frankincense, and weighted on different parts to activate pressure points on the upper body. I expressed how these sculptures were meant to be used by them in case they needed to feel embraced, or just wanted to have the opportunity to interact. Besides a few photographs taken on that event [Image 2] as documentation, it is their audio interviews [Whole audio interview], and the engaging with this archive, that has shaped much of what this project has become. I chose women first, because of the interactions I have had in the past with another body of work I made in 2018 called A(D)DRESS. I was exploring my relationship with my mother and the tensions, the search for love and understanding through the trauma we have inflicted to each other. While holding open studios in the Bronx, the number of women and feminized folks from the Caribbean who would comment on their complicated relationships with their mothers made me realize there might be a larger socio-cultural connection to be explored. Why are we holding these femme/intergenerational tensions? I made sure to center women first – extending then to feminized people to see if there was something to connect to in those personal relationships to the machista societies we live in.

Listening to the responses from these four women, and the other feminized folks I have interviewed, I think about the contradictions García-Peña talks about when looking at the formation of Dominicanidad (2016). Even though in her book, the borders of Dominicanidad are defined within/in relation to Haiti and the US, I think about the borders that enforce Dominican womanhood. García-Peña talks about how Dominican women have been perceived and regulated within Dominican culture when she was addressing the Galindo virgins (49). The border of Dominican gender then becomes enforced within white womanhood and masculinity- a trope that erases Black feminized lives as a Dominican embodiment. García-Peña talks in depth about this process of whitening of Dominican womanhood and their silencing (27). What happens when we listen then to Black Dominican feminized folks and their memories of love? What are the borders that society enforces within their experiences? I do not expect to answer these questions within this analysis but want to keep these questions in mind while I explore these narratives. These are their stories, their experiences.

Two of these interviews have been used for video art pieces – disembodied audios that accompany moving images and illustrations and connect to other six narratives. Connected by aesthetic and general themes, there is no questioning of their concepts – audiences are invited to listen to the loop and engage with the piece reflecting on their own first memory of love. Some of these engagements [Images 4-8] come forward into the archive. These responses were collected from October 2021 until March 2022 when the interactive installation for LovingSUITS was exhibited at the Bronx Museum of the Arts as part of the AIM Biennial. Even if these responses might not come from the folks who identify as women or femme, nor are necessarily Dominican, their engagement and responses are included because they are in direct dialogue with narratives they have heard from Black Dominican feminized folks. All these pieces (the images and the transcriptions) that form the archive will be analyzed together under three conceptual frameworks. These are: Love in the quotidian and in disruptions, Love as sacrifice, and Love within narratives and the sonics. Because of the limitations of time and space, this analysis will not necessarily be doing justice to the myriad of avenues presented in each of the objects contained within the archive. There are also limitations when we analyze these objects; looking at them here will not do justice to the multidimensionality of the participants because I am focused on a single answer that has the possibility to change over time. I am engaging with these answers understanding the inaccuracies of memory, the ever-changing nature of people’s perceptions and the limitations that come when we might not consider factors that were not documented. It is my hope that this archive serves as a platform for other questions to emerge, for us to reflect on, and expand.

Amor en lo cotidiano y en las disrupciones

Participant number 3 was the first one to answer the question “What is your first memory of love, and how has this shaped how you love?”. The narrative that the participant brought up was those moments of intimacy and connection she had with her grandmother. These moments happened whenever there would be electrical outages in the Dominican Republic – a disruption within “everyday life” and which had the participant thinking there was “nothing to do.” The participant reminisces how her grandmother would tell her stories and riddles whenever these outages happened all while she rested her head on her thighs. Similarly, participant number 4 recalls her first memory of love to be the moments in her childhood when her mother would get her ready for school. Her mom, with kindness and care, would try and wake her up and remind her the importance of education and getting up early to start her day. Both memories place practice of care and love come within what would be everyday practices. Getting ready for school, and unfortunately, the constant blackouts one experiences in the Dominican Republic. These two narratives provide what hooks says are the mix of various ingredients for true love – “care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”(5) She also says, quoting M. Scott Peck that love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own and another’s spiritual growth” (4). The grandmother of participant number 3 took these chances of electrical disruption – that become part of the quotidian- for nurturing with stories, opening a line of communication with her granddaughter. An act of recognition and affection. The mother of participant number 4 as well understood the importance of instilling her values for her daughter’s growth. Even within the hard labor of moving a kid’s body while being half asleep, she practices love as a noun – she communicates to her child, she shows affection and patience, and commitment towards her success. Participant’s number 4 mother then makes her child accompany her in the labor of care and love towards her sibling. Ensuring that the practice of nurturance becomes quotidian as well.

It was a pleasant connection then when we hear participant number 4 acknowledging participant number 3’s practice of love within their families. Participant number 3 said her family on her mother’s side is close knit (mentioning that for some folks they might describe it as too much or “clingy”) because of the physicality on their demonstration of love. Participant 4 agrees in describing her whole family as the “clingy” type where they are always on top of each other. But there is something to be said about the haptics of love and how touch is embedded within these quotidian practices. In the interaction responses one and two [Images 3,4] we see audience members reflecting upon the haptics. The first batch looks at other folks embraces and yearning embrace as a first memory of love. The second looks at touch, touching a parent while being fed, or the act of a parent combing one’s hair. Van der Kolk, when addressing ways in which we can heal from trauma expresses that “the most natural way that we humans calm down our distress is by being touched, hugged and rocked” and that these are strategies that “[…] makes us feel intact, safe, protected, and in charge.” (217) hooks, as I explained before, places love within these feelings: care, protected and seen (5,7,53) which makes it understandable how these embraces and the act of being touch, held, extending touch to a parent, are a place that will provide a loving gesture within these people’s memories.

Amor como sacrificio

Participant #2 starts her narration being clear that her memory is not the best. She let us know that her general understanding on what is love comes from the actions and decisions her parents made regarding giving the best life possible to her and her sister. She talks about how their parents had to stop pursuing their graduate studies because their priority shifted once they were born. Even if she does not understand the position in general – she tells us she is not thinking about having children of her own- she sees that as what love should be. She tells us that her understanding is that of sacrifice and collective ownership within a family unit. Similarly, we see that participant #7 talks about the summers she was sent to the Dominican Republic when being a kid. She explains that, even though she was her mother’s only child, this was a sacrifice her mom made for her to enjoy her “free time,” even if she understands that this was a trick – her mom also needed a break from her and enjoy free time. She talks about, how even if her mother had anxiety when making the decision of sending her by herself to the Dominican Republic, she always felt assured because her grandmother would receive her in the airport.

I understand that the word sacrifice has a negative connotation, and we might understand that there are some tensions in the idea of love as a liberatory force and it to be aligned with sacrifice. But I want to challenge this notion. Thinking about the contradictions García-Peña proposes (2016), and the tensions of practice for survival Levins-Morales mentions across her work (2019), we need to hold space to think about the sacrifice of these actions as a place that might ensure survival. Living within oppressive systems and knowing that these will not provide for the safety of one’s family, sacrifices of self-fulfillment come in place for a communal goal. And if we see these narratives of sacrifice as an act of service to ensure a future for our kin, we can agree with hook’s understanding that “Love in action is always about service, what we do to enhance spiritual growth[…]Serving others is as fruitful a path to the hearth as any other therapeutic practice.” (216-217). These women understand that those sacrifices were essential for their well-being, and we even see how participant number 7 has translated those memories of her mom’s sacrifices to her being of service as a loving and caring act.

Amor en las narrativas y en lo sónico

“His love gave me love we were love [sic]” says the end of the second response card contained within the interactive responses #3 [Image 5]. These four responses are part of the last batch, where instead of a stamped card, there is a printed card. Each card had different illustrations (5 different ones) that are found within the video art piece in the show. This second response talks about how their memory of love pertains to their father reading bible bedtime stories. This audience member says that, even if they are now an atheist, these bible stories are deep in their narrative. The fourth response within this group (interactive responses #3) speaks about when the audience member’s mother would read them bedtime stories, hugging her goodnight, and never wanting to let go. The sonics and narratives of memory is another place of interest in this project. What are the sounds of love? How are the narratives we listen to connected to our understanding of love? What is it about storytelling that connects us to others?

On the first conceptual discussion we see how there are narratives also embedded within the quotidian. Both participant’s (number 4 and number 3) had their mom, or their grandmother narrate to their child. The mom telling the daughter the importance of her actions, and the grandmother reminiscing in those moments of quiet during an apagón with her granddaughter. I naturally include the sonics here because of how memory works: if we are able to hear, when we think about these memories of narration there is a tone and infliction in the way people speak. I wonder, what would these participants and audience members would tell me of the sonics of these narratives? How was their mother’s voice? Their grandmother’s tone? Did their dad whisper when reading bible nighttime stories?

Some answers in the interactive responses are clearly connected just to the sonic. The third response places their memory on being held by their grandfather while listening to boleros. I personally am transported to my grandfather’s arms as well when I listen to boleros – I hear the static of the cheap Casio radio and the olives he would feed me while I told him stories I made up; and I know it is this personal connection that also moves me – as here I am collecting narratives about love, through audio, and reminiscing on the ways these little sonic escapes allow me to relive care and loving.

Other possibilities / An open-ended project

There are many questions that still linger and because of the limitations, as I had expressed before, I cannot dissect in this paper. I want to look more deeply into the borders of Dominican feminization, the ways in which these narratives from our feminized perspective can shed light into other systems at play. I believe, just as race is an intrinsic part of these reflections, Dominican gendering is something to look at. Who are the ones who perform love and care? What is expected of us within family spaces and in society? I keep seeing how it is through the centering of these feminized voices that I can explore these questions deeply.

While I think about what is not said in the interviews and responses, I look at what García-Peña’s engagement with Tamara and her way of honoring the traumas from El Corte . She says one should not speak about the massacre and to hold silence.(117) We honor pain with silence but hold in our minds the process of recollection and reflection. I do not want to equate this generational trauma to others, but this passage makes me wonder about the silences that are captured within these interviews. How can we remember a first memory of love? There was about a minute of silence and participants who clearly decided to pass while they listened to others. What are the things we are holding within our body that go beyond the personal recollection? Van der Kolk talks about how language is essential for us to have a sense of self, and this is dependent on one being able to organize their memories into a coherent narrative. (249) But for language to form, for us to move forward we need silences. He explains before how one can establish “inner ‘islands of safety’ within the body.” That one can identify places where one can reconnect and embody themselves when going through negative memories.(247) I clearly see how the participants while listening reached out to get a LovingSUIT into their laps or necks. I think about other possibilities of embodiment and safety, such as the reflections contained within responses #4 (Image 6). The responses (from left to right talk) express that their first memory of love stems from realizing the power of self-love. The first response states that their first memory of love was finding themselves. The second one states that it was when they finally realized that they were enough and attracted those who understood. On this card, below the illustration the audience member wrote “~self love~.” The third one says, “looking in the mirror” and the last one states, “Dancing alone in my room or liveing room that I made myself [sic].” These group of responses explicitly place love within the practice of self-reflection, acceptance and embodying oneself.

Responses #5 (Image 7) have another way of engaging with love and the possibilities of embodiment. They place their memories in first experiences that engage the senses. The first one states that their first memory of love was the first time they floated in the sea. The second, was the first time they tasted sugar. I consider the notions of pleasure and embodiment in these two memories. The body being suspended while being embraced by the vastness of the sea – the accomplishment of letting the body just be and being held by water. The pleasure of tasting. A new experience that opens a new horizon within taste. I wonder about those moments and how they relate to and expanding sense and definition of love? Within the poetics of describing love, the sea, floating, taste and sugar come up often as symbols and metaphors. These are one of the first times someone connects in this project this imagery to their own experience.

I wonder if these responses engage with hooks propositions of self-discovery: how one to realistically confront lovelessness to attain self-realization. (9) Is this what is happening when the participants are in silence or claim the issue of recollection? Or, as we see in the audiences’ responses on the last set (Image 8); is the acceptance of nothing to recollect or a depressed state that does not allow one to access a silence that honors the lack of sustained love? Van der Kolk proposes that indeed, most suffering is related to love and loss (26), and Levin Morales speaks about how the power relations of our childhood can shape our perception of worth and power (105). Is there a connection within those power relationships and the suffering from lovelessness? I honor these silences and all the possibilities that might be contained within them, because it is those silences that brought me to articulate the LovingSUITS project. I believe there is hope when we recognize this pain; we need to name it – Van der Volk tell us about how a professor proposed that one can be fully in charge of healing through acknowledging this reality (27). “I hope to find one” says the last card of the group. That hope to find something- may it be what hooks proposes as acts of care and support that not necessarily pertain to love, or as Van der Kolk expresses, the acceptance of hurt and loss, will be the action that heals.

We have endless possibilities of acknowledging pain; but this project works within the possibilities of love as action – a liberatory one. I believe this work is individual. intergenerational, and must be communal- but for us to get to the communal, we need to have already started, or seek to start, the workings of the personal. As hooks says: “When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” (140) We can explore our individual selves while also finding a community to reflect and grow to collectively find within our narratives, the connections lost and erased because of our family’s history, systemic erasure, and genocide. Through these communal reflections we can look at survival – assimilating into a system that needs us to be broken, isolated and barely pushing through – extracting love from our everyday. These narratives are moment of resistance, moments of pleasure and reflection that we are not often granted. As hooks says:

"As our cultural awareness of the ways we are seduced away from love, away from the knowledge that love heals gains recognition, our anguish intensifies. But so does our yearning.[…] As we yearn, we make ourselves ready to receive the love that is coming to us, as a gift, as a promise, as earthly paradise.” (221)

As a political being, I cannot separate this quest of/for love within the micro to reflect upon the macro a political cause. LovingSUITS is a project I hope to gain more information about the ways we can show up for each other in healing and liberation, through love. It is through hope I need to move as a person, and the promise of love for my kin in the road for the abolishing of these systems that make surviving incompatible with loving.

Soñar y amar como acto de liberación.

Click here to see a visual representation of the concepts used for analyzing the objects on this archive. This will download a JPEG file.

Click here to listen to the whole interview that has been transcribed in its original language.

Click here to go to transcriptions.

Each transcription starts with a summary in English of what is said by the participants. The transcription is in its original language and with time stamps. Below there is an English translation in case the original transcription is not predominantly in this language.

Click here to access all of the images that belong to the archive.