Queer Artist Coco Riot Talks Myths, Minotaurs
By Lizzy Hill
At first glance, Coco Guzman’s drawings and papier-mâché sculptures of colorful beasts wouldn’t seem out of place in a children’s nursery. But if you look a little closer — past their bright, cheerful palettes and storybook-like aesthetic — you’ll find something else entirely. Guzman is wrestling with incredibly charged topics, ranging from the cultural trauma that still lingers in Spain after the years of General Franco’s dictatorship, to gender-based discrimination against LGBTQ people today.
Coco Guzman — AKA Coco Riot — is a Spanish-born queer artist based in Canada who uses play as a tactic to fight back against systematic oppression. Guzman believes that unearthing the buried histories of the past is key to discovering our “secret present,” and in the power of play to transform the world we live in. And after stepping into the artist’s fantastic, imaginary story worlds, where boundaries slip away as characters weave their own colorful destinies, it’s easy to fall under Guzman’s spell, catching their contagious sense of hope for a better future.
The Establishment chatted with Coco about their unique fusion of activism, art-making…
