Lulu's Journal (2017)

This video-poem projects my own thoughts and feelings musing in voice of my mother to tell parts of her story previously untold. I imaged her writing in a journal while being institutionalized at Chicago-Read Mental Health Center when she was a teenager. Through a collection of episodic journal entries and poetic investigations, the voice of the young artist Amanda Cervantes reenacts the queer, Latina youth of Lourdes Benavides or Lulu, my mother. Rather than embody her they reflect a psychic space and interiority; the private place of reflection and consciousness muted by the institution and the insidious powers of homophobic and patriarchal Western culture.