VITRINE
EXHIBITION SERIES
JUN 29 – JUL 29, 2024
Ricardo Miranda Zuniga
esfuerzo
esfuerzo (effort in Spanish) is a multimedia interactive work by artist Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga. The exhibition features documentation of Zúñiga’s new platformer-style video game, esfuerzo, as well as related research and illustrations from the project. esfuerzo draws from Mayan religious traditions as a framework to present a hero’s journey in which culture, history, and gameplay are interwoven.
“… My work seeks to invert common tools of social control to create dialogue, exchange critical perspectives, generate questions and ideally inspire subjective action …”
— Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga’s work has been exhibited at New York City institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York Hall of Science, Museo del Barrio, the Museum of the Moving Image and international venues including Matadero Madrid, Spain; Centro de Bellas Artes, Cuidad de Mexico; Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; National Center for Contemporary Art, St. Petersburg, Russia; Museum of Image and Sound, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Digital Art Zurich, Switzerland. Awards and honors include artist residency at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany; HIAP Artist in Residence, Helsinki, Finland (2013); Eyebeam Artist in Residence (2008); New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship; Tides Foundation Lambent Fellowship; New Museum’s NEW INC Fellowship; grants from NYSCA and NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
esfuerzo, 2024, documentation of multiplayer VR game
esfuerzo, 2024, game play stills from platformer-style video game
esfuerzo, 2024, detail of newsprint poster including research texts from esfuerzo
Artist’s Statement
The issues that I confront through my work stem from personal experiences and observations; since an early age I was aware of my parent's difficulties as immigrants struggling with a new language and culture. Growing up I spent my summers in Nicaragua and the school year in San Francisco. These two very different environments created considerable confusion in so far as my understanding of where I belong in the world and of human interaction in general -- a sensibility that has extended into my artistic practice -- that investigates the divisive nature of capitalism and the social tools used to establish hegemony. My work seeks to invert common tools of social control to create dialogue, exchange critical perspectives, generate questions and ideally inspire subjective action. In practice, the principle behind my work is twofold: to approach communication as a creative process and to investigate how economic realities formulate not only the world we live in, but more importantly the lives we lead.
"esfuerzo" (effort in Spanish) is a platformer-style video game draws from Mayan religious traditions as a framework to present a hero’s journey. The project was conceived during the summer of 2022 when more than 152,000 unaccompanied minors reached the Mexico – U.S. border primarily from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, lands that were once Mayan. The Mayans believe in three realms – the underworld Xibalbá, the earth – land of corn and the heavens Oxlahuntikú. The underworld and heavens are populated with deities whereas the earth with humans and animals. These realms are levels in the game. Along the way, culture, history and gameplay are interwoven.
My rationale behind building a 2D platformer is that people commonly understand and know how to play platformer games as they have been played for over 35 years, and they remain entertaining. To take the platformer format and defamiliarize it through storytelling seeks to present an entertaining, but informative narrative that shares a bit of Mayan mythology while also reflecting upon common attitudes and misconceptions regarding new immigrants. The narrative from the platformer is also presented in comic strip format on one side of a poster and an abbreviated history of U.S. immigration policy on the other side. The game and poster are employed as workshop tools to brainstorm and envision new immigration policies that reflect today's realities.
esfuerzo was funded by the Social Practice CUNY Fellowship and the CUNY Research Foundation. Music was created by Huang Luming.