This work represents a personal quandary, whereby I challenge
the idea of preserving my family-instilled Ukrainian”—“American
heritage. To me, this hyphen once represented an evenhanded
hybrid space. Yet in the world of alluring capitalism, the balance
has been increasingly interrupted by the constancy of technology,
and the appeal of American life. My cultural identity is a social
and political construct, composed of my daily choices. My reality
is one version of many: the first American generation battling
the seduction of time, distance and inevitable cultural transformations.
I am steered by learned honor, pride and dedication to my family’s
story of immigration and therefore Americanization. From this
starting point emerged a heritage industry that promotes diasporic
culture through the recycling and repetition of language, activities
such as folk dancing, and crafts such as embroidery. This recurrence
of allegiance to what was left behind in the homeland encourages
the anxiety that surrounds the fear of losing traditions and
cultural “authenticity.” Is cultural identity formed
through lived experiences or simply inherited?
In my contemporary location as a female artist finishing graduate
school in Boston, there is a void of my imbued Ukrainian heritage.
The frameworks of embroidery and dancing, as repetitive and
domestic acts of cultural reverence, represent the instilled
ideal relationship to my ancestors. What fills these frameworks
is unavoidably American. The photography, representing my daily
choices, is digital, familiar, industrial, reproducible, and
takes its visual cues from advertising. The dancers are American
girls in costume, practicing folk routines learned in diasporic
environments. Based on the sum of my lived experiences, my heritage
has enriched my present life. From here, my identity will continue
to form through the complex compilation of my choices.
-Andrea Wenglowskyj
*phrase adapted from “Ahistoric Essay,” written
by Nato Thompson, Curator at Mass MoCA, for Ahistoric Occasion:
Artists Making History, May 2006- March 2007
