Vanessa Mercedes Figueroa: Mechuda

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Vanessa Mercedes Figueroa, "Mechuda," 2022

The Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art is pleased to present Mechuda by Vanessa Mercedes Figueroa in the Project Gallery. In this exhibition, Figueroa explores the navigation of the third space as a person of colour while existing in western spaces.

Mechuda, a Spanish word used to refer to someone with long or particularly messy hair, is used as a motive in Figueroa's exhibition. For the artist, to be mechuda can sometimes feel like an attribute that has been linked to her identity as a person of colour while living in the global north. The artist is situated in the third space, a term coined by Homi K Bhabha, referring to hybrid cultural perspectives associated with both globalization and colonialism. In inhabiting the third space, Figueroa is continually exploring what it means to be ethnically coded in western spaces.

Mechuda includes a collection of collage and photographic works that celebrate and consider the role ethnic body hair plays in Figueroa’s identity, including Peluda, which consists of multiple inkjet prints of various parts of Figueroa’s body with hundreds of individual hairs attached with glue.

“Figueroa’s use of hair as a symbolic tool in navigating her experiences as a woman of colour fosters an intriguing entry point into acknowledging identities outside of our own” comments Artistic and Administrative Director, Lorna McParland.