Cynthia Tobar & Luis D'Elias

¿Dónde puedo ir? Searching for home
Artistic Discipline: Literary Arts
Category: Brooklyn Arts Fund
Grant Year: 2021
Location: Brooklyn
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¿Dónde puedo ir? Searching for Home is a collaborative project that will consist of a series of musical works created around recorded oral histories that capture a sense of immediacy of displacement facing local Latinx residents in Bushwick. The compilation of the oral history interviews will be done by Cynthia Tobar, and the music will be composed and produced by Luis D'Elias, featuring local musicians for the recording of the music. In times when it is increasingly necessary to create empathy within the multicultural boro that is Brooklyn, and as we face a pandemic that needs each and every member of society to actively care about each other, storytelling becomes a crucial avenue through which collective experiences are shared. It is why a project that involves original music and writing that incorporates the experiences of Latinx residents facing displacement due to housing insecurity, political turmoil, and socio-economic instability can become an excellent venue for empathy and showcasing Brooklyn’s strengths: its diversity and its soul. Brooklyn represents a microcosm of the benefits and challenges of the American experiment. It is a place that has fostered diversity and was built up by immigrants. Yet it is also a place where immigrant communities are in danger of- and most likely already- experiencing social and physical displacement. There are those who are facing forced displacement due to political instability in their home countries seeking a sense of belonging. Then there are others who were already struggling with inequality, housing insecurity and a broken food system who have been further impoverished by the COVID pandemic. This is particularly acute in Bushwick where we are witnessing these political and economic mechanisms playing out in the neighborhood. We want to amplify stories of how we find our sources of strength to not only survive but thrive.