We Will Cook and Stir Many Life Projects: A Praxis of Relationality

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Cindy: Relationship-building has been crucial to the transnational, community-engaged work of Contours ArteCalle. In this essay, collaborator Maritza Arango Montalvo, Coordinator of Project La Muñeca Negra (PLMN) in La Habana, and I would like to focus on the process of building these relationships by sharing some of the moments that have strengthened our commitment, not only to decolonial feminist, anti-racist activism, but to each other.

After the first edition, Contours co-founder Maxine Nwigwe of New York and I began to get more imaginative regarding ways to build a more decolonial feminist structure among collaborators – a structure that prioritized our activist friendships and a praxis of welcoming. We conceived of the Contours ArteCalle Collaborative, a body of primarily Black and Latina women and gender expansive people in the Americas who have a similar vision. Creating hospitable spaces with each other reverberates from the heart of Contours ArteCalle. Early in the planning process for Edition 2, Maxine decided to step away. I deeply felt her absence as did some of the others who had worked with her during the Edition 1 process.

Martiza, Myrna Padrón Dickson, Siria González, and Margarita Montalvo had all contributed to the first edition of Contours ArteCalle, participating in the back and forth revision process that took place on WhatsApp between Cuba, New York, and Minnesota. They continue to have a willingness to take the leap into this unwieldy publication project that has taken shape across the first two editions. As we make plans together, I have realized the importance of collaborators sharing ideas when they are not fully-formed, when we are more open to the ways that each other may sculpt the plan in unexpected ways.

In March of 2023, collaborators from the United States went to meet with the collaborators from Cuba. Together, we would plan the larger trip for February of 2024, in which all of the contributors to Edition 2 would experience and perform the publication to local Cuban audiences. The six of us from the U.S., four traveling from Minneapolis and two from D.C., briefly met in the airports and in the air on the way to Havana. Three of the travelers were current – Liliane Sojos-Ortiz – or former – Devon Severson and Carly Duran – undergraduate students from the University of Minnesota whom I mentored through various institutional research programs. Elizabeth Scott of Minneapolis participates in queer Black activist projects, and Yolanda Hester of D.C. is an independent public historian, affiliated with the University of California in Los Angeles, who has done extensive research on Black dolls in the U.S. Yolanda joined me as the principal editor of Edition 2, not only because of her knowledge of Black dolls and Black doll makers, but her similar desire to build a network among all the participants of this edition. I could not wait for these five dynamic women to meet my friends and collaborators from Cuba.

Martiza: The month of March was full of joy and new expectations for me and for El Proyecto La Muñeca Negra (PLMN). Cindy is known in Cuba for her solidarity with sociocultural and community projects, projects composed mainly of Black women. I had the pleasure of meeting a group of women from the United States, who, together with Cindy, make up about half of the Contours ArteCalle collaborators. I am one of the collaborators that lives and works in Cuba. The novel thing was knowing that they were coming, but meeting them personally was the most precious thing. To see the genuine interest they had in all of us in Cuba, to know our stories, our culture, to sing, and dance together. We shared our hearts with them and they shared theirs with us.

Cindy: Before the U.S. group traveled to Cuba, Maritza asked me on WhatsApp, “What should we plan when you visit Margarita’s house? A presentation like we give the Pastors for Peace?”

I had been to several presentations where a group from the U.S. sits and listens to Cuban project leaders present their community work. The visitors question and the presenters answer. The visitors leave with new knowledge. My intention here is not to say that these visits do not have an impact as they happen, or even years later. In 1998, I visited Cuba as part of a group that was learning music and dance. I did not sustain the brief friendships that developed then, but that visit affected me so deeply that I eventually returned to Cuba twenty years later with the intention to collaborate on an anti-racist activist project. Those seemingly short, one-time engagements may lead to unimagined futures. I am not sure what my short-term friends from Cuba gained from visits of U.S. travelers, but when Martiza asked me about the presentation, I wanted to communicate my desire for a different kind of engagement. “I hope that with our visit we can create lasting relationships with each other, relationships that will be central to our work together,” I wrote. We did not get a chance to fully discuss our ideas over WhatsApp before the visit. I wasn’t sure if Maritza conceptualized the relationship-building aspect of this long-term project, or even if I had fully communicated to her that I hoped she would be part of this project for years to come. This visit was to establish all of us as collaborators. I realized later that Maritza, with her open heart and experience with popular education, developed a vision for our visit that was foundational to the project.

Martiza: In a certain way, yes, popular education arises from dialogue and participatory processes, from the participants themselves, and their realities. It is led by those who seek change and transformation. Something very important is that we work in groups and among groups, we identify the problems and try to solve them by taking the lead. In Contours ArteCalle, we listen, we respect the criteria of others, we work in groups and between groups. It is an inclusive place in terms of gender, art, race and creed. The important thing is the transformation, the change, the interaction with non-profit purposes, but with solidarity and sorority. In our Contours ArteCalle logo, the contours are lines that define the ridges and dips in the landscape. No figure is the same, and they are all inside. All of us are in the landscape.

Cindy: At the very beginning of the trip, our landscape felt much more disjointed. I felt as if we were two sets of collaborators working on various aspects of Contours ArteCalle that were distant. I was the only person who knew all the collaborators in both countries. For me, the configuration of relationships felt like being at the center of a spoked wheel with just a few connections between the spokes. By the end of this trip, the relational configuration had transformed into more of a network, and I felt like less of a mediator. All of the collaborators had begun to form friendships and share ideas with each other. This happened in part because of the ways we prioritized relationship-building during our time together.

Maritza: We were all very different but very equal. Cuban and American? No, I only saw women, without creed, without race, wanting to unite and break barriers, create new bonds, expand horizons from our space with what we have and can, strengthen others already trained, collaborate and include. We had many topics to discuss. For example, Yolanda (Hester) took my oral history with a tape recorder in hand. I was taking note of how my life had changed over time: The development of a human, all the learnings and knowledges, and all that has enriched my life. I was able to extract memories from remote places, memories that seemed forgotten. Feelings arose with memories. It was nice to find out they were in there somewhere. By bringing them back, I realized many facts that made me the woman I am today.

At our first meeting at PLMN headquarters we made the entire United States collaborative honorary members of the project. I think that’s what brought us together the most. We were already all part of Contours ArteCalle, but now we were also all part of PLMN. From there, I saw how we formed a deeper level of friendship and cooperative working relationships between women. Talking to Yolanda about Black dolls was very interesting. I remember the expression of connection on her face when I told her that I knew of a doll called Abayomi of African origin. We talked about how they are made, why and for what purpose, their healing and healing properties, always with our translators Lili (Sojos-Ortiz), Devon (Severson), or Carly (Duran).

To hear these younger women of the group – Lili, Devon, and Carly – articulate their interest in problems of gender, discrimination, economy, violence, and their desire to contribute to the betterment of humanity, committed and demonstrating it with actions of solidarity, is worthy of admiration. I saw them happy and committed, enjoying each theme as much as the rest of us, ready and willing to translate each word, each feeling, each gesture, to the point of exhaustion. Lili, Devon, and Carly did not stop translating, even when it was exhausting. Elizabeth, like everyone else, was eager to learn everything about Black women’s activism, needle and cloth in hand almost all the time, industrious. I think it’s something that characterizes her, that she could sew while remaining very focused, attentive, and participatory in all conversations and topics.

Cindy: During these meetings at Margarita’s house, webs of friendship formed, through words and through actions. Maritza had cooked up a delicious arroz con pollo for lunch and afterwards passed around little plastic cups of strong, sweet coffee. Carly shared with Margarita a sketch she had drawn of the sculptor as she shared about her doll-making history. Maritza asked Elizabeth, who was sewing a quilt square, to explain her quilting techniques. These small connections opened up our desire to know more about each other.

Margarita and Maritza were sharing their space, food, knowledge, and time with us. Knowing this, the U.S. contingent of the collaborative brought many material resources with us to Havana: money to cover the cost of our visit and art supplies like acrylic paints, varnish, buttons, scissors, fabric. Elizabeth had collected donations of batik fabric from her Minneapolis quilting guild because Maritza had told us that this fabric was not available in Cuba and quality fabric was pricey. She uses it to make clothes which she sells in Havana. Devon had collected several skeins of yarn in an array of bright colors, all free from her Washington, D.C. neighborhood Buy Nothing Group. Margarita, Maritza, Siria, and Mirna met us with their resources: an understanding of the local neighborhoods and how to locate food in a time of scarcity, transportation, and lodging, networks of friends, artistry, and the space of their own homes. Many of us from both countries in the collaborative are cognizant of the way we have been taught to differentially value material resources over cultural resources, placing them in a hierarchical relationship. I have tried to be transparent about this and actively work against it in the context of this project. I wanted to create a Contours ArteCalle culture in which we all challenge practices that dehumanize anyone in the collaborative. My hope is that all of us find this collaboration meaningful; that those of us from the U.S. work against extractive research practices and exoticism; that those from Cuba open themselves to lasting friendship, and that all of us interrupt and support each other when we fall short. But, money and material goods did challenge this attempt at equity after those of us from the U.S. gifted Maritza and Margarita that suitcase full of supplies for their art-making. The supplies are hard to find in Cuba right now, and there is never enough money to sufficiently take care of one’s basic needs, at least among the Contours ArteCalle collaborators who open their homes and hearts to the U.S. collaborators.

Martiza: A sisterly gesture of solidarity from each one of them was the delivery of accessories, fabrics, thread, yarn, acrylic paint, and a laptop. They had generously gathered these items together before coming to Cuba. My emotions surfaced. I was eager to sew with the wax African fabrics, or batik. Elizabeth appeared with them, having asked her quilting guild for batik fabric donations. Elizabeth told me that when we ran out I should tell her to provide me with more fabric. I felt happy but at the same time I felt that they could be making too much of an effort for this collaboration with us. They have a life, expenses, and families that depend on them. This would be another totally voluntary commitment for them, but in the end, still a commitment. So I quickly said I would somehow pay for the new fabrics that they brought me to pay something to compensate for the expense that the U.S. collaborative, Elizabeth, or members of the quilting group would undertake. I didn’t think the small amount of money I would generate would be very relevant financially, but it would be more of cooperative action. They told me that this return was not necessary, and that calmed me down a bit.

Cindy: The day after the U.S. group had given the art supplies and fabrics, we met at Margarita’s house for more work on the oral history project, led by Yolanda. As we gathered in the front room in morning conversation, tears began to fall down Maritza’s cheeks. She said that she was moved by all of the supplies, but she was worried that she would grow dependent on us to keep bringing them. She said that she wanted to pay us back once she sold the pieces she would create. The faces of those from the U.S. looked like I was feeling: mortified. This is because none of us from the U.S. ever intended to contribute to a relationship that involved dependency. We tried to explain to Maritza that she didn’t have to pay anyone back. Devon said that the yarn she brought from the Buy Nothing group in her D.C. neighborhood was free. Elizabeth said that the batik fabric was given by members of her quilting guild. Still, these were all resources readily available to the collaborative members of the U.S., and stating that we didn’t pay for them did not quite resolve the issue of dependency. Maritza’s honesty led to a deepening of our relationship that took place during the rest of the visit, and continued into the writing of this piece.

When Martiza read the above paragraph as we co-wrote, she commented through WhatsApp to clarify her reaction: Hermana, I would not be able to return the money for all of the fabric. I could not. But from what I was selling I would contribute with some amount, even if it was not significant. It would be very bad manners, ungrateful to return the complete cost of the gift, when there is none here. The love with which they brought it to collaborate with us is immense. You know me. I am someone who values the efforts of others. I am not only talking about money. Everyone thinks that the foreigner has more, and it is true, from where you look at it. But it is also true that they work as hard as we do, to come to Cuba it costs them a lot of money and time, and you know what else, but it is something that the human being needs, to enjoy, to travel, but it requires efforts to some take from one side to put in another. I always think to be reciprocal in some way, but I was not ungrateful. I never tire of thanking each and every one of you. Maybe the correct word was not to give back, but it is illogical to give back what I don’t have. I was worried that you would have to take something out of your pocket. That’s all.

Cindy: When I read Martiza’s above comment, I realized that the depiction of events that I write about below does not address this. It never occurred to me that Martiza was troubled that we thought her to be ungrateful or grateful, rude or polite. I did not perceive this cultural aspect of Maritza’s emotions and reactions. Co-writing this piece with Martiza means that we continue to address reactions and interpretations long after our in-person gathering. We continue to deepen our relationship.

The next day at breakfast in our hostel, the collaborative members from the U.S. continued to discuss not only Maritza’s reaction but how our actions contributed to it. We were all troubled, and listened closely as each of us explained precisely what was bothering us. Even as Maritza did not want to feel dependent on us to bring fabric, we realized that our visit to Cuba was dependent on our Cuban collaborators’ willingness to be our cultural guides within the system in which they lived. We wanted to think of our relationship as more interdependent, recognizing that all of us contribute what we can to the project, whether material or cultural. Lili said that she did not want Maritza to pay us back for anything. We all agreed. The Cuban collaborators were contributing not simply their guidance, space, time, and cups of sweet coffee, but offering the U.S. collaborators a beautiful space to belong. When Margarita and Martiza made us honorary members of PLMN, my heart was full of gratitude and love, because I realized that they too wished to create a connection that lasted beyond a one-time visit. I could see that they were stepping into this relationship with trust and excitement. The sparks of possibility – not necessarily specificity – flashed between our eyes.

By the end of breakfast, after listening to the group and recalling Martiza’s thoughts and feelings, an idea occurred to me, what we in Contours ArteCalle now call the “Olla de Oyá” – “the pot of Oyá,” the Oyá is the Orisha that swirls the air like a tornado, among other attributes. What if we metaphorically put all of our resources into the pot, the olla, where they spiral together? As a group, we decide what we need from the olla and how to use it.

Capitalism circumscribes this collaborative we are constructing – the U.S. blockade against Cuba, the drastically uneven economic differences between the Cuban collaborators and the U.S. collaborators. The U.S.’s cruel political agenda to alienate Cuba even from support from other countries has harmed the everyday lives of the Cuban people. Can people from the U.S. who visit Cuba, with a comparatively bottomless purse of economic and material resources, be trusted by Cubans? Amidst this landscape, we have to continuously unlearn that economic and material resources have more value than what social, cultural, and human relationships bring to us. We have to do this while balancing the fact that economic and material resources are limited, real, and desired in Cuba. I would say that the Cubans I know desire such resources not to compete with others, as in a capitalist system, but to both survive and share rare material abundance with their local communities. The decolonial feminist praxis of Contours ArteCalle needed to acknowledge the complexity of forming relationships within the uneven political economic landscape, and more explicitly value all the resources each of us brings. But we needed to come to a shared understanding that all of our contributions are equally important. Maritza had explained that in La Muñeca Negra, Margarita would write down in a little book the work that each woman did each day. When they sold dolls and other items, they would distribute the money to each of the women based on the accounting. If Maritza wanted to contribute money, could she set aside a small portion of what she earns when she sells items using the fabric and yarn? Toss it into the olla? The same goes for everyone involved. If I were to ever make money from giving presentations about Contours ArteCalle, I could set aside a portion for the project too. How we handle money and material resources requires careful attention, but the other resources should as well. All the resources go into the pot. As a transnational collaborative, we bring a multitude of resources that we share and need to value equally. We of Contours ArteCalle undertake feminist world-building within the eye of the capitalist hurricane blowing around us. We know we do not exist outside of capitalism, but together we propel ourselves into a space where we create our own transnational feminist praxis. This may sound a bit grand, but our sustained commitment to working together across nations, languages, and cultures demands and inspires a new, shared praxis.

Maritza: See how one thing brings about the other. Until I began writing this article with Cindy, I didn’t know what had generated my reaction to the American group Contours ArteCalle, this desire to be equitable. It was never my intention to give back what was given to me with so much love. I just wanted to be equitable, thinking how to create a bridge of giving and receiving. Many of the donations were collected, given by neighbors and groups to which they belong. But at the beginning I thought they were bought, like the fabrics. As I said before, they have a life, expenses, and families. But in a way the confusion in giving and receiving was not all bad. I think it was very good. Because of my feelings and all the confusion, Cindy came up with the idea of ​​the Olla de Oyá, where we will all put our contributions and in a circular way we will support each other. Fantastic.

Cindy: During the time we all spent at Margarita’s house, the most profound moment as I experienced it live, and even more so in retrospect, was when Margarita opened a gift crocheted by Contours ArteCalle contributor Catriona Rueda Esquibel. Peeling aside the tissue paper, Margarita saw a beautiful little brown doll. Her eyes filled with tears as she held the doll to her cheek. “Se llama Kati,” she announced. A gift of a brown doll from one dollmaker to another touched all of us in the room. Catriona was not able to join us on that 2023 trip, but planned to go with the larger group the following year. The gift bonded Catriona and Margarita even before they were to have met. Before that larger trip, Catriona transitioned to the next life, leaving us shocked and shaken. Kati forged the friendship between Catriona and Margarita, and was present at a memorial we held at the Casa Tomada mirArte in 2024. The memorial, planned by Mirna, Margarita, and Maritza, honored Mirna’s ancestors, Catriona, and my father, Isidro Francisco García, who had passed just two weeks before. This gathering intertwined our memories of these loved ones and intensified our love for each other.

Maritza: Having participated in the first edition of Contours ArteCalle, and with Cindy explaining the way Contours is growing into the second edition, it is now with the human warmth, with this live and direct interaction, with these exchanges, that I internalize more thoroughly the path that Contours ArteCalle wants to walk. There is still a lot to do to learn and unlearn, but what is clear to me is that this project has made a good start. The solidity of the relationships built, that we have built. Let’s go for more! We will have a pot, where we will cook and stir many life projects for Contours ArteCalle.