Ana Hernandez X Emily Wilkerson
Emily Wilkerson (EW): We've talked a lot about language in the past few months when discussing the works included in Color of Clouds and you’ve mentioned that, throughout this project, you’ve been thinking a lot about the role language plays in your family—past, present, and future. Can you talk a little bit more about this?
Ana Hernandez (AH): I think one of the reasons language is a recurring subject in my work is because I was an ESL (English as a second language) student and the forced assimilation and indoctrination I experienced had a negative effect on me and aspects of my relationship with my family. The communication barrier that resulted felt constructed– for the purpose of creating distance and disconnection from my roots. As a child, I didn’t understand that my experience was not unique, I didn’t recognize the shared pattern I held in common with my ancestors, who were also forced to learn and speak a colonizer’s language. I now think of my personal experience as an example of manufactured and weaponized silence and erasure, similar to censorship, by way of suppression and surveillance.
EW: For this body of work, you’re translating among languages—English and Spanish, the binary code, and your own visual representation of words. What is the binary code, and how do you utilize it in this series?
AH: The binary code I’m making use of in this series is American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). It’s a two-symbol system—a machine language of 0s and 1s—used to communicate information in modern technology. Instead of using 0s and 1s in 8-bit sequences to represent certain letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, I’m using the absence and presence of marks and media, in dark and light values, to spell out words and reveal the shapes and patterns they form.
I became intrigued with binary code after reading Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. There’s a page in the book with a picture of the Arecibo message, which seemed familiar and is similar in design to embroidered and crocheted textiles I grew up surrounded by. This book page led me to “How to Talk to a Spacecraft,” (a set of) coding activities on NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory homepage and introduced me to ASCII.
EW: Was the binary the impetus for using a more limited color palette for this series?
AH: I began the series with a focus on the Black and White binary, but after re-reading a sentence from The Relación de Michoacán, which describes the color of clouds and their corresponding cardinal directions, I was inspired to expand my palette to include colors that fall in between the two extremes. The Relación is one of the earliest surviving illustrated manuscripts about the cultural and social history of the Indigenous Peoples of Michoacán, where my family originates. It was also important for me to have Black, Red, Yellow, and White represented because together, they hold special significance for many Indigenous Peoples around the world. My decision to work with these four colors was also influenced by words from writers John Trudell and Amiri Baraka and colors from a Red and Black beaded necklace that was gifted to me by my Mother and belonged to my Maternal Grandmother, who was a curandera.
EW: I’ve always admired your introspective approach to the materials you use in your practice. Can you share more about your choice of using paint, textiles, wood, and cement for the works in this exhibition?
AH: What began as a way to try to avoid monotony became an embrace of age-old beliefs and practices concerning the use of specific media to activate materials in certain ways so that objects that are created in this manner, with this intention, translate these messages more powerfully. It has been fascinating to consider this while continuing to learn more about Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Mesoamerican writing systems, especially glyphs on clay, stone tablets, bark paper, and textile scrolls.
EW: With these beliefs and practices in mind, how do you typically select materials when embarking on a new series or project?
AH: I’ll always prefer to create with found, reclaimed, repurposed, and gifted materials. Not only because it’s a way to be in good relations with our planet, but because of the history and life-force I believe exists in these types of materials. I like the idea that our collective energy contributes to the evolution, the shape-shifting of matter. And I think it’s important to stay open to experimenting with different media and materials because it can be a form of play that contributes to positive growth.
EW: Why do you create, and when did you start making art?
AH: Creating is an urge. An outlet for expressing my thoughts and emotions. A way for me to process, to analyze, to learn and unlearn, to remain curious and continue imagining and playing. It’s a way to remember who I was and who I am becoming. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been collecting and assembling found objects, making collages, playing with mud, creating ephemeral sculptures and installations out of natural materials. But it wasn’t until around 2005 when I started sharing my art (hand-built ceramic works) with others.
EW: Can you share a little about how growing up in California influenced your artistic practice?
AH: I was born and raised in Southern Oregon/Northern California, on Klamath/Modoc tribal lands. It’s important for me to acknowledge this because I grew up alongside, and was in community with, the Indigenous Peoples of the area, specifically direct descendants of those who fought for their land in the Modoc War, so my awareness of the importance in recognizing and respecting this fact was ingrained in me at an early age.
EW: You've mentioned your family moved from Michoacán, Mexico to California. What prompted this move?
AH: My family, on both my Mother’s and Father’s sides, are Indigenous to Michoacán, Mexico. As a Bracero railroader, my Paternal Grandfather was one of the first of our Peoples to travel back and forth between our ancestral homelands and the area where I was born and raised, or as my Peoples say, el lugar donde está mi ombligo. Over time, more family members also followed in his footsteps, some to visit and some stayed longer.
I’m grateful that I was raised in a close community of extended family members and friends—I feel fortunate to have a strong support system. Having family nearby and gathering regularly was a reminder of who my Peoples were and still are. I was able to see myself in them, in us. It also allowed me to participate in our cultural traditions and to be proud of our roots.
A couple years ago I was sharing my interest in returning to our Peoples’ ancestral homelands with my Father. Shortly afterward, I was invited to accompany two of my Tias on one of their journeys back. It was a regenerative and grounding experience to be able to return to our village and to know we are still in good relations with each other and the land, that our community is still there.
EW: Landscape is a powerful influence for your more recent work in South Louisiana—has the land has always been a vital point of departure for your art practice?
AH: Sense of place and belonging definitely influence and inform my work. Growing up in a rural area gave me a deep appreciation and respect for my surroundings, but it was also a constant reminder of how care for and/or harm of the environment impact us all, in similar and different ways. There, I saw, and I still see, the strength and beauty of the landscape, but I also felt, and still feel, the violence and the trauma that lingers from the Modoc War, the Japanese-American Internment Camps, and the ongoing “Water Wars.”
EW: What inspired your move to New Orleans in 2008?
AH: In 2007, I was living and working in North Oakland/South Berkeley as an arts educator at a non-profit organization, when I was offered the opportunity to travel to New Orleans along with fellow staff and students. We came to the city to meet and work with YAYA (Young Aspirations Young Artists), the youth arts organization our organization was modeled after. At YAYA I met and connected with many artists, including Rontherin Ratliff, who I stayed in touch with. A year later, Rontherin invited me to return to New Orleans for a longer visit. A few months turned into 15 years and counting…
With this move, I gained a newfound commitment to my practice, thanks to encouragement, inclusion, and overall support from the community of artists I call friends and fam. From California to New Orleans, bodies of water, weather patterns, animal behavior, migration, sound, resistance, resilience, and spirituality continue to be sources of inspiration for my practice.
EW: Considering all these elements that continue to inform your practice, what is at the heart of what you are addressing in Color of Clouds?
AH: To challenge, critique, and point to the criminality of white supremacy and the ongoing settler colonial project—which includes space exploration—in as many ways, shapes, and forms as possible, for the foreseeable future.
Ana Hernandez is an artist living and working in Bulbancha, also know as New Orleans, Louisiana. Hernandez's practice centers on contributing to the historical and ongoing collective movement reimagining, envisioning, and co-creating systems of change, global justice, and healing. She is a co-founding member of Level Artist Collective and has been nominated for and awarded artist residencies by Joan Mitchell Foundation and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Hernandez's work has been exhibited from New Orleans to Antarctica at locations such as the New Orleans Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, Xavier University, and Stella Jones Gallery, among others.
Emily Wilkerson is the founder and director of Other Plans.
A printed version of this interview was published in conjunction with Ana Hernandez: Color of Clouds, Other Plans, 2024. Design by Collection of Collections and printed by constance. To receive a copy of this publication, contact us at info@otherplans.gallery.