Part I, or “Naturalization,” is a re-performance of my naturalization ceremony, my first public documentation as a United States Citizen. As viewers bear witness to this initiation through the reverberations of a two-year-old’s memory, they are, in turn, initiated as members of a congregation, invited to adopt and publicly proclaim their own identities at will. “Naturalization” draws from my personal archive of images, official text and familial memories to create a site where the spiritual implications of citizenship are explored.

In Part II, or “Colombioplasty,” I present myself as a patient prepared to undergo a Colombioplasty and invite the attending public to illustrate with surgical pens how my body might be altered to make it more Colombian. Through the viewers’ participation, this section engages the assumptions, desires and questions of the body politic at hand, provoking a force that is at once external to me and also agent over my identity. “Colombioplasty” is an opportunity for those viewing the piece to reckon with their agency over their perceptions of other(ed) bodies.