Coco Fusco

“Migration Interrupted: Rights, Freedom, Opportunism, and the Controversy over U.S. Immigration Policy”

Coco Fusco, an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and the Director of Intermedia Initiatives at Parsons The New School for Design, spoke on the other side of immigration—those who don’t make it to the U.S. because of interference by the U.S. government or their home government.

As she writes in her book English is Broken Here, Fusco's identification “as a child of diaspora, of the Cold War, of the Civil Rights movement, of the Black Caribbean, of Cuba, and of the United States” has informed her work as both a scholar and performance artist. She combines electronic media and a variety of formats, from staged multi-media performances incorporating large scale projections and closed circuit television to live performances streamed to the internet that invite audiences to take part in a “chat room” and help chart the course of action. Her work is meant to provoke commentary and dialogue; to illuminate the unexplored.

Fusco’s performances and videos, including “Operation Atropos,” “Bare Life Study #1,” and “A Room of One’s Own,” have been presented all over the world, including two Whitney Biennials (2008 and 1993), the Sydney Biennial, the London International Theatre Festival, and more. Her books include English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas (1995), The Bodies that Were Not Ours and Other Writings (2001) and A Field Guide for Female Interrogators (2008).

Fusco received her B.A. in Semiotics from Brown University, her M.A. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in Art and Visual Culture from Middlesex University.

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