A CulturalDC Night in Argentina is a night of wine tasting, dancing, and food inspired by Argentina. Stephanie Mercedes, a Latinx artist with Argentinian lineage, is our next artist of the season. This fundraiser goes to support her CulturalDC three-part performance art piece, Never in Our Image.

Never in Our Image is a three-part experimental opera that presents Mercedes’ process of gun transformation through sound. Mercedes creates musical instruments and sonic sculptures from reclaimed guns. Through cutting, melting, and utilizing instruments cast from weapons Mercedes composes musical scores. The work forces the archetype of violence into its opposite: the beauty of music and art. This three-part performance invites the public to become a part of the cathartic experience of gun transformation. In this opera, by queering sound and metal, we ask ourselves the question: how can we reclaim materials that were never made in our image?

Mercedes is an uncategorized Queer Latinx artist who choreographs large scale performances and installations based in sound. Mercedes transforms weapons into musical installations and works of art. Mercedes has exhibited and performed at the Bronx Museum, the Queens Museum, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center and the National Gallery of Art. She has been funded by George Soro’s Open Society Foundation, Light Works, NALAC, The Foundation for Contemporary Art, WPA, The DC Commission for the Arts, the GLB Memorial Foundation, the Warhol Foundation and the Clarvit Fellowship.