Facing the progressive homogenization of culture, I wanted to confront two opposite worlds: tradition and globalization.

We (Camila and Ana Cañeque) left Spain alone with no other luggage than a flamenco dress: “Our Dresses.” The dress was the only thing we had, the dress symbolized everything to us. From Barcelona to New York City, we had to cross “the center of the world” in 27 days and discover, through being permanently displaced, our proper place.

The flamenco dress has become a commonplace, a member of the souvenir industry. To wear the dress as a uniform intended to restore the life it had lost: to wear the past, explicitly and visually, and turn it into something present. By being a copy and pastiche of a Spanish cliché in an identifiable out-of-context, a new place was created, although it only existed for 27 days: the United Spain of America.

The place of origin is the reason why the performance had to last 27 days, full time. The Spanish alphabet contains 27 letters (because of the Ñ) and there are 27 countries in the European Union. “Our Dresses” can be a failed fusion of cultures, the resistance to progressive loss of local identity in relation to global, a questioning of roots, a representation of the Hispanization of the U.S., a desperate search of home by orphans of geography or the desire to assert oneself. A tale told by the story that happened.