Alien Nation, 2017 

Hoesy Corona 

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden 

Washington, DC

Shadow/Casters curated by Victoria Reis | Transformer DC 

photo by Andy DelGiudice 





Performance Description:

Alien Nation is a performance by Hoesy Corona that ruminates on the impending plight of climate immigrants globally. Twenty-three costumed performers will traverse the Hirshhorn Museum’s 2nd floor rotunda windows and embark viewers on a mysterious and evocative visual journey.

Alien Nation is part of Corona’s ongoing series The Nobodies (2009-Present), where the artist explores what it means to be a disenfranchised member of society in North America by embodying the abstract concept of nobody.

Corona makes colorful sculptural garments fitted to the human body that create other-worldly experiences for the viewer. The artist revels in the simultaneous visibility and invisibility that the garments bring to the wearer. In these performances audience members are invited to play a part in the act of nobodying, an operation that consists of making somebody, nobody. Nothing all of a sudden becomes individualized, becomes body and eyes becomes no one.

My ongoing series “CLIMATE-IMMIGRANTS" (2016-Present) is an ongoing performance and multimedia site specific installation that considers the impending plight of climate induced migration worldwide and its effects on people of color. The performers wear 'Climate-Ponchos' which feature vinyl cutouts depicting silhouettes of traveling immigrants against colorful floral backgrounds.

Previous iterations have been presented at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Athens School of Fine Arts, Siren Arts, and the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building.

For this project I wanted to do something of a global scale that implicated a broad audience and included as many people as possible. I conceived of the idea of climate-induced migration as a very real issue of our time that needs to be voiced. The performers will wear what I call “climate ponchos,” which includes head gear that obscures the performers faces, an approach I chose because of the mystery and anonymity it affords. Always silent, these figures will roam about the installation site and in various locations create repetitive sculptural forms and movements for attendees. Additional elements of sound and video will help to contextualize the experience for viewers.

The clear wearable climate ponchos are adorned with images that depict the archetype of the “traveler,” with the people depicted wearing backpacks, carrying suitcases, wearing hats and some holding children. They are all on their way somewhere, in one direction a lot of the times. This simple showing of people in movement, in transition, resonates with a world-wide issue and will echo the reality of the viewers as they themselves traverse space to witness the performance.

I enjoy the ambiguity of the words “Climate Immigrant” and “climate Ponchos” as they evoke both natural and political notions.

-Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2018
-Siren Arts, Asbury Park, NJ, 2018
-Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, 2017

My ongoing series “CLIMATE-PONCHOS” (2016-Present) are ephemera from a series of wearable sculptures that are central to my ongoing performance “Climate-Immigrants” , a performance and multimedia site specific installation that considers the impending plight of climate induced migration worldwide and its effects on people of color.

For this project I wanted to do something of a global scale that implicated a broad audience and included as many people as possible. I conceived of the idea of climate-induced migration as a very real issue of our time that needs to be voiced. The performers will wear what I call “climate ponchos,” which includes head gear that obscures the performers faces, an approach I chose because of the mystery and anonymity it affords. Always silent, these figures will roam about the installation site and in various locations create repetitive sculptural forms and movements for attendees. Additional elements of sound and video will help to contextualize the experience for viewers.

The clear wearable climate ponchos are adorned with images that depict the archetype of the “traveler,” with the people depicted wearing backpacks, carrying suitcases, wearing hats and some holding children. They are all on their way somewhere, in one direction a lot of the times. This simple showing of people in movement, in transition, resonates with a world-wide issue and will echo the reality of the viewers as they themselves traverse space to witness the performance.

I enjoy the ambiguity of the words “Climate Immigrant” and “climate Ponchos” as they evoke both natural and political notions.

The most recent series of climate-ponchos was created during a year long fellowship at Halcyon Arts Lab (2017-2018) in Washington, DC and a summer residency in Columbia, MD as the Merriweather District Artist in Residence 2018. The ponchos were made using a variety of materials including acrylic paint, acrylic medium, and vinyl on canvas, polyester, organza, and clear film.

"In my ongoing series "White Constructions" I’ve been exploring notions around the calculated construction of race as it pertains to US-centric power structures.This series explores the deliberate construction of race in North America and the strategic placement of white identities as superior to the rest. In White Constructions I limit my materials to the word 'white' cut from vinyl on a clear surface (clear film, glass, plastic). My hope is that these constructions encourage a timely conversation around the social construct of race and the negative implications within it for people of color." 

-Kern Gallery, 2016, Milwaukee, WI
-MWF Gallery, 2016, Pittsburgh, PA
-Decker Gallery, 2017, Baltimore, MD
-Spacecamp, 2017, Baltimore, MD
-Heurich House Museum, 2018, Washington, DC
-Gilcrease Museum,  2019, Tulsa, OK
-Washington College Kohl Gallery, 2019, Chestertown, MD
-The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, 2020, Wahsington, DC
-AHHA, 2021, Tulsa, OK

Mother Death Life Mama, 2012 is a short performance that considers human mortality through the use of otherworldy wearable sculptures and soundscapes. Performed at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of the Contemporary Wing reopening celebration.

Recharging the Canon
Hoesy Corona
Walters Art Museum
Baltimore, MD 

Recharging the Canon : Nobodies Gala was a quinciañera celebration, or fifteenth anniversary, for my longest ongoing performance “Hoesy (2001-Present)” while highlighting the museum’s Mexican earthenware collection. The small collection of MesoAmerican objects  has been found to have questionable origins so instead of directly engaging with the museums' collection I deciced to create my own small clay sculptures that paid homage to my ancestry. I set the finished figures on electroluminescent panels on the floor  of the sculpture court. I plugged the lights directly into floor sockets and started recharging the canon with my queer Mexican art. Four additional perfomers charged the canon with me. 

SCAPEGOATS (2013-Present) is a meditative and poetic sculptural exploration of the indoctrination into societal othering as a form of devoted practice. In it, the deity is the Scapegoat, a figurative representation of blame and shame as internalized acts and subconscious thought processes that sacrifice individuals within a community for their queer existences. In this series the herd is shown relaxed in a safe environment that re-envisions a triumphant ending for the social castaways. 

The Scapegoat Reliquary, 2018 

A (Good) American 

Heurich House Museum 

curated by Philippa Hughes

The Scapegoat Reliquary is a site specific installation featuring ceramics, sculpture, lithographs, and embroidery that celebrates the archetype of the scapegoat as one worthy of worship. The Scapegoat Reliquary is a meditation on those individuals in any culture that are scapegoated and cast away for their queer sensibilities. The scapegoat is always wrongfully blamed for the systemic problems of the society.

The Scapegoat Reliquary is situated in the main dining quarters of the Heurich House Museum. The room is home to the largest collection of Scapegoat-Idols in the world. What was once the lively heart of the house, is now a place of contemplation and introspection.

The Scapegoat Reliquary celebrates the survival, resiliency, and triumph of the 

scapegoat against adversity . The installation invites visitors to think about their own relationship to ancient ideas about blame and shame — and consider their personal relationship to contemporary North American modes that upkeep white-social-dominance while disparaging immigrant-communities-of-color.

THE SCAPEGOAT RELIQUARY

Slave Vase Mantle: 

“Scapegoat-Idols or Immigrant Children on Emergency Blanket” , 2018 

ceramics, emergency blanket, Vase from the museum collection

Glass-Top Desk: 

“Scapegoat Throne with Chain”, 2014 

found materials, chair, thread, wire, silk flowers, chain, acrylic paint, emergency blanket

Dinner Table: 

“Sobremesa | Meaningful Dialogue”, 2017-2018 

Embroidered placemats, vinyl tablecloth, mylar, ceramics

Doorway Obstruction: 

“White Construction | The White Wall”, 2016 

cut vinyl on clear film

Floor: 

“I Am Not Your Scapegoat”, 2015 

lithograph prints on newsprint, emergency blanket, mylar 

In my ongoing series The Nobodies (2009-Present) I make colorful sculptural garments fitted to the human body to create other worldly experiences for the viewer. I revel in the simultaneous visibility and invisibility that the garments bring to the wearer. In these public performances I invite audience members to play a part in the act of nobodying, an operation that consists of making somebody, nobody. “Nothing” all of a sudden becomes individualized, becomes body and eyes becomes no one.