Mercedes, Part 1, a stunning multidisciplinary art installation by Brooklyn artist Modesto Flako Jimenez, currently on view at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is a timeless reflection of regality, reverence and the profound impact a grandmother can have on one's life.
Jimenez, who cared for his abuela, Mercedes Vinales, as she battled dementia, created an installation by recreating her third-floor walk-up apartment on Harman Street in Bushwick, at BAM Fisher in Fort Greene. There, he uncovered years of letters and documents about his Dominican grandmother, which he transformed into a multilayered art exhibition embodying pure love.
“I am recreating the house that she gave me space in," Jimenez said. "I’m inviting people to celebrate the nine days of mourning, as they do in the Caribbean, so I’m inviting people to the ninth day of those nine days when we all come together.”
If the value of a life can be measured by its impact on those it touched, then Vinales' existence in Bushwick was immeasurably powerful.
The walk-through experience gives TV-set vibes, positioning Jimenez as a Dominican Norman Lear, extracting pain, discomfort, laughter and admiration. During the timed tour, four actors in the apartment act as guides, encouraging people to take a deep-dive into Vinales' mementos, which range from journals to albums to Spanish-language magazines.
You can open the refrigerator, eat from the fruit bowl on the kitchen table, and view pictures of Vinales' family, including pictures of a young Jimenez.
“During my teens, I knew when I went outside I was going to be a gang member, gonna be a Latin King, an explorer, a police cadet, Imma' be all of these things, and experience everything, the great spaces unknown to my color," the artist recalled. "Imma' go to Maryland and do marching drills [and] she’s like if that’s what you wanna' do, go do it and be the best sergeant that you can be."
The sixty-minute experience includes a powerful documentary detailing how Vinales had an immense impact on her family and the Bushwick community.
The installation also spotlights dementia, the neurological condition that Vinales dealt with in her later years, to talk about mental health and inter-generational caregiving. Jimenez created a pop-up mental health room that provides private consultations with senior centers, including one-on-one visits to residents there.
Visitors can meet a dementia navigator, an art therapist and Mt. Sinai researchers who will offer free research to your brain for five years, where they will track it and tell you how your brain is progressing, Jimenez said.
"There are three levels of activation after you take in the house. You can then eat, do some art therapy, have a moment of breathing, or listen to Mercedes' story to process what you just experienced in the house," he said.
Visitors who have also cared for a family member with dementia can engage with their emotions in the healing room. Jimenez asks guests to write down the names of their loved ones impacted by dementia, and the names are read off so they can be honored at the exhibition. There are markers, crayons, and paper in the Healing Room, for visitors to create drawings, which are then placed in frames and exhibited on a wall.
Jimenez said his abuela instilled the importance of taking care of people: "In the same space she took care of me, now I get to do it for her. How do I pass this tool down?"
Evoking tears and laughter, Mercedes, Part 1 is a powerful, graceful and intimate walk through the life of a woman whose impact reverberated from Bushwick to the Dominican Republic and now to BAM.
The show is on view through Dec. 8. Tickets are timed and visitors can expect to see the entire installation in about an hour and a half. For more information on the show, click here.
