Alejandro “Dro” Watson
Dro Watson shares with us Self Portrait in a Red Jumpsuit (2020). The work explores how one is seen and understood.
Hi! Welcome to The Casserole Series :) Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
DW: Of course! My name is Dro, and I just love to make, I love to create things! For a long time I was focused just on getting into filmmaking, but in the past few years my practice has really expanded to sort of include any medium I can get my hands on. You see my focus is the representation of underrepresented minorities and experiences, that includes identity, and mental health, and stuff like that, and what I've found is that it's much easier to get my message across when I go with the medium that is going to best encapsulate the message being conveyed.
I was struck by your self portraits. They hover between still and moving image.
DW: Yeah! I really love photography, and have a little bit of a background in it, and I also really love this filmmaker named Chantal Akerman who works with really long, uninterrupted shots, I figured it might be interesting to combine those to sort of make these moving photographs almost, that contain little moments but not full stories.
Oh! I am also a Chantal Akerman fan :)
The one minute time frame of each portrait reminds me of the limitations put on the user by tech companies (ie: twitter, instagram, etc). Because of this, I find myself wanting to interact with the image - ‘like’, comment, retweet. The reaction is so engrained it was surprising to me that without this option I actually wanted to stay with the image longer. It forced me to engage with the image itself, not with my response.
DW: That's so interesting because these were specifically designed to live on instagram initially! I really like to place limitations on myself when I work because it helps me to focus a bit more, so when I started this project I said to myself "shoot it in a 1:1 ratio, and one minute long at the most". It's so interesting that both you and I were compelled by the social media "aesthetic"! Me, in my creation, and you, in your response!
I love the self portrait in all of its forms. From van Gogh’s self portrait to more contemporary artists like Andy Warhol and Vivian Maier to the self portrait of the everyday citizen - the selfie. We seem to be in an ever evolving exploration of how we are seen / experienced out in the world.
DW: Oh absolutely, and that exploration of how we are seen really drives my work! Like I said earlier my focus is the representation of underrepresented minorities and experiences, well this is really because I belong to a lot of groups that are misunderstood/hated and I want to really put a different image of those groups out there, a more human one.
These self portraits are dated 2020. Were these all made during quarantine? Is that what motivated turning the camera back in on yourself?
DW: These were all made during quarantine! Turning the camera on myself has really been something that I've been doing for a long while though. I really want to tell raw personal stories about people, I like to really get personal, and at some point I figured who do I have the most access to in the world? Myself! I'm sure to the outside observer this seems absolutely narcissistic, but it really goes back to the representation thing. I'm a queer, mentally ill, multiracial, fat person, all of those things are often misrepresented and badly represented for the sake of sensationalization, I want to show that I am just a human trying to get by, and everyone like me is the same. I make "hypervulnerable" work in the hopes that people like me will feel seen, and people who aren't like me will understand others a little better.
This Week’s Casserole: Chicken Divan
Chicken Divan is a favorite of the artist. Enjoy!
Ingredients
2 pkgs frozen Broccoli
2 cups of sliced cooked chicken
2 cans of cream of chicken soup
1 cup of mayo
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of curry
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1/2 cup of soft bread crumbs
1 tablespoon on melted butter
Recipe
Cook Broccoli until tender
Arrange Broccoli in 9x13 baking dish
Place chicken on top
Combine soup, mayo, lemon, and curry. Pour over Chicken.
Sprinkle with cheese.
Combine crumbs and butter. Sprinkle over entire dish