Dulce Soledad Ibarra — i wanna sleep forever (March, 2024)

Coaxial Arts Foundation is thrilled to announce LA-based multidisciplinary artist Dulce Soledad Ibarra as our March 2024 Artist in Residence.

Installation Opening
Sunday, March 17th | 4:00PM – 6:00PM

Performances
Saturday, March 23rd | 4:00PM – 6:00PM

Gallery Hours
March 21st, 23rd, and 24th | 1:00PM – 4:00PM

*Mask wearing is required throughout the run of this exhibition and related events. N/95, KN/95 & Surgical masks are suggested and provided.

RSVP

i wanna sleep forever performance night

It was an unimaginable feat, an allegory, one in which a short, undocumented Mexican woman managed to kill a federally protected bird of prey with a rock in the Inland Empire. Even though she killed the hawk, it had done its damage and left a rabbit, headless, in its tracks. She, on the other hand, remained stuck, in perpetual fright, knowing that she had killed an American bird of prey with rights unlike her. This fright transcended into susto, a folk illness recognized by Latinx people of causing one’s soul to leave their body and it is an illness that is passed down to future generations. The inheritance of susto that swims through the blood of their family, is what artist Dulce Soledad Ibarra explores in their solo exhibition, i wanna sleep forever.

In this exhibition, they conjure up a personal mythology of this story using ceramic, sound, and performance. As they question and uncover the inheritance of susto, they learn how to delve into recesses of perpetual fright. While it is an incurable condition using the limitations and “rational” of western medicine, some Latinx communities believe that in order to heal susto, they must pray. Through a passed down lullaby in an unknown indigenous language, Ibarra works to heal their family lineage in musical prayer—an oral history that is remembered and translated differently by each of their siblings. This song becomes a way to not only heal from the susto, but also a means of a collective re-membering, a mode to link the past to the present, and heal for the future.

-Words by Christal Pérez

Dulce Soledad Ibarra (they/them/theirs) is a multidisciplinary artist, designer, educator, and curator with investments in community and identity-emphasized arts and opportunity. As a practicing artist, Ibarra discusses issues and narration of generational guilt, identity, class, labor, displacement, and injustice in sculptures, videos, installations, performances, and participatory work. Looking through queer Xicanx perspective, the work is fueled by emotional labor, personal mythologies, and cultural research, and a strong interest in place-making and narrative-building. Much of Ibarra’s work centers around the aesthetics and resilience of the Piñata/Party Supply District of Downtown Los Angeles, engaging in the means of sustaining as a community of businesses and as a place of cultural familiarities and commodities. Ibarra has exhibited, screened, performed, and programmed at venues across Southern California and beyond, including Angels Gate Cultural Center, Charlie James Gallery, Consulado General de México en Los Ángeles, Craft Contemporary, Echo Park Film Center, Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University, Human Resources Los Angeles, ONE Gallery in West Hollywood, and Pieter Performance Space, among others. Ibarra holds an MFA from the University of Southern California and earned a BFA in Sculpture from California State University, Long Beach.