Sucúa Haven
(on going)
Sucúa Haven is research-creation collaborative project that inhabits the intersections between anthropology and art, Ecuador and the United States, and fiction and non-fiction. The project was initiated through the Mellon Artist and Practitioner Fellowship at Yale’s Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM) Research Center.
Inspired by Jean Rouch’s ethnofictions and Augusto Boal’s theatre practices, Sucúa Haven presents a series of short stories, staged and documentary photographs, videos, and audio pieces based on the experiences, memories, dreams, and imagined alternative lives of a community primarily composed of Ecuadorians in Greater New Haven. Together, these elements form a portrait of a transnational territory.
The project has circulated in printed formats, in both academic and non-academic journals, as well as in installation and video formats in museums and galleries, and as a narrative performance in community and cultural spaces.
In its most recent stage, it has been shared with other diasporic communities in Spain, France, and Canada through listening exercises and embodied storytelling using applied theatre techniques. These practices explore the role of performance and listening spaces in fostering empathy, connection, and the capacity to hold difference, while creating conditions for collective storytelling.
Publications
Article published at Post(s) Journal: Sucúa Haven: Inhabiting the border between practices, territories and identities.
Multimedia Installations
Video Installation at BUAM at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo.
November 2025- March 2026. Quito, Ecuador
Multiscreen installation as part of A-Bordo Group show in FLY Gallery in La MarAirport
April 9, 2025. Cuenca, Ecuador.
Performance
Sucúa Haven- Storytime at Chacra restaurant
August 18, 2024. New Haven, US
Sucúa Haven-Storytime at FLACSO Seminar
10 de Diciembre, 2024. Quito, Ecuador
Sucúa Haven- Storytime at the City Hall of Sucúa
September, 2024. Sucúa, Ecuador
Sucúa Haven- Storytime at the Film Showcase la Linea Imaginaria.
October, 2025. Madrid, Spain.
Oral history participatory performance at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo with Venezuelan and Colombian migrants, as well as internal migrants and families of migrants, Quito, Ecuador, 2026.
In collaboration with Recodo and Enredo Teatro
Listening practices and applied theatre workshops
Listening and Storytelling workshop with women from the Ecuadorian diaspora at Asociación Rumiñahui, Madrid, Spain, 2025.
Listening and Storytelling workshop with members of the Ecuadorian diaspora, Paris, France, 2025.
Listening and Storytelling workshop at Centro de Arte Contemporáneo with Venezuelan and Colombian migrants, as well as internal migrants and families of migrants, Quito, Ecuador, 2026.
In collaboration with Recodo and Enredo Teatro
Listening and Applied Theatre techniques workshop with members of the Latin American diaspora, Acts of Listening Lab, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, 2026.
In Collaboration with Drama therapist Maria Fernanda del Real
Sucúa Haven was part of Channels of Testimony, a residency with the Acts of Listening Lab at Concordia University. As part of this program, 4th Space hosted a symposium that brought together participants to reflect on and discuss the project’s methodologies.
Photo Gallery
