She hits my foot from under the table. First it’s a mistake, then she beams up at me and does it again, on purpose this time. We both laugh. “What’s funny?” they ask. “Nothing,” we say. Her giggles sound more like squeaks. These moments with Jade follow a formula.
Mendieta’s work is a call to neither only empathy nor only imagination; it implicates the audience as both co-agents and co-artists through participation.