Missionary Project
Inspiration for video work comes in many ways. For the Missionary Project, I was drawn to a hip and vital location that seemed perfect. Mexico City is one of the most dynamic converging points in North America. In this sprawling metropolis, history is all around you. It’s underneath the ground on which you stand.
In the bustling underbelly of the city lies one of the largest and most vital subway systems in the world. In a trip to Mexico City in 2005, I found myself mesmerized by the sounds and music played on the trains. Many Mexicans risked their freedom to illegally play and sell music underground. This was not the only place in the world in which this is done, but I believe that nowhere on the planet is it done like this.
Mexican vendors stroll onto a crowded subway car and make a grand announcement about the music they are selling. Then without hesitation, almost if the moment happened on cue, their music plays off their bodies as if it were representing who they are. This inspired me immensely.
In following years, I returned to the Mexico City subway to participate in the ‘processional of sound’. My premise was simple. Could I sell my music that represented my identity in a Mexico subway? Would people be interested? Could I use this intervention as a way to give the Mexican public a glimpse of the heart and soul of Black American beats?
I travelled to Mexico to sell my identity. In its most recent incarnation, I received a grant from the Creative Communities Foundation in Washington, DC. Working with local high schools, I facilitated a collaborative undertaking in which our humble DC community produced 250 handmade CDs to be sold in the underground of the largest Spanish-speaking metropolis in the world.
In the 1980s/1990s mix-tape tradition, I sought to create a beautiful conglomeration of sounds on a CD. A well-done mix-tape is a subversive act in itself. Typically a mix-tape is a collection of songs recorded in a specific order. Through the use of beat matching, songs can be faded and mixed to one another creating a seamless flow to create a particular unifying sound. Even though “tapes” are no longer used, the name remains the same for CD compilations. Essayists Geoffrey O’Brien pays homage to the “mix-tape” by calling it “the most widely practiced American art form”. By carefully selecting and ordering the tracks in a mix, an artistic statement can be made that is greater than the sum of its individual songs.
With my large team back home(see Tightrope Studios), I devised a way to create a package that would be an original work of art that would be readily accessible to the Mexican public. In the tradition of Jose Posada, I designed a CD package that was loosely based on the Mexican social realist tradition that was prevalent in the 1930s and 40s. Making a unique connection to the inspiration that fueled the fire of the Harlem Renaissance, the design incorporates a fusion of both Black and Mexican heritage.
In the spring of 2009, wearing my “boom-box” vest, I traveled to Mexico to sell the packaged artwork. In a limited edition of 250, I documented the sale and commodification of an African American art piece. For the price of ten pesos ($0.75), we made a handmade American product available to anyone who was interested in the sounds and the spectacle. Over a two-week period, my crew documented this cultural exchange. In addition, we also met hundreds of Mexican vendors who helped us understand the profession of selling music on one of the most congested subways in the world. In conclusion, I compiled a formal short video, a documentary, and a three-channeled video. Below are a selection of stills from this project.
Stills: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Jefferson Pinder