Migrar es respirar -  Intervocal

Intervocal — a community partner on Hemispheric Encounters led by Mexico City-based Collaborator Tareke Ortiz — seeks to explore the sound inheritance of migrant participants that make possible the recording and analysis of contexts where sound is the transversal axis. Through musical experimentation workshops, Intervocal develops research on the processes of migratory identity that not only occur between Mexico and the US, but also globally from the most important migratory routes in the world. 

Migrar Es Respirar (To Migrate is to Breathe), a project led by Intervocal and affiliated with our Mobilities Research Cluster, is a study that explores the importance of interculturality through the positioning of the voice and through musical-sound exploration. In September 2021 it involved the creation of a choral work and set of actions in collaboration with The Stop Shopping Choir (New York), the Colivres Collective of San Cristóbal de las Casas Chiapas, the Hemispheric Institute, and the Tzozil videographer Xun Sero. Migrar Es Respirar was created to join the “reversed conquest” initiative promoted by the Zapatistas, in which a Zapatista delegation travelled by boat across the Atlantic, from the south of Mexico to the coast of Spain and other destinations in Europe to carry a message of decolonization and liberation to the epicentre of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. On September 22, 2021, the Visual Assembly in Madrid accompanied the Zapatista delegation at the doors of Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum to demand the decolonization of the Museum and of Spain. Choral Compositions from Migrar es Respirar were performed live during the event by the Stop Shopping Choir outside of the Museum together with numerous activist organizations that were present.