Overview
Gina Goico is a multidisciplinary artist and PhD candidate in Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. Goico's research examines how the aesthetics, performances, and organizing of self-identifying Black Dominican artists and activists operate as strategies that queer state-circulated identity in the Dominican Republic and its New York City diaspora. Their dissertation, titled "Reveliones"—a wordplay with reveal (revelar in Spanish) and rebellion (rebelión)—alludes to how these objects of analysis produce rebellions that reveal structures of oppression, othered embodiments, and Black, queer life as essential to Dominican identity. Situated within a Performance Studies paradigm, their project analyzes literary works, performative actions, and artworks alongside organizing strategies as acts of refusal across these geographies and sites.
Goico is currently developing “2000s Resistencias”, a digital archive for social movements in the Dominican Republic, supported by a Caribbean Research Travel Grant from Cornell LACS. The archive will later be housed within El Museo de la Resistencia in the DR.
Goico was a 2022-2023 CUNY Dominican Studies Institute Fellow and was awarded the Spring 2023 Gertrude Spencer Prize from the Knight Institute for exceptional mentorship. They have also participated in the AIM Fellowship at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Laundromat Project - Kelly Street Residency, and Smack Mellon residency as a Van Lier Fellow. They have exhibited internationally and continue to provide workshops and community talks while actively supporting socio-political initiatives on the island and in its New York City diaspora.
Goico holds an Associate’s in Fine Arts and Illustration from Altos de Chavón, a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from Parsons The New School for Design, and a Master's in Arts Politics from New York University.