Filibuster #2 (Bernie Sanders)

Filibuster #2 (Bernie Sanders) (2016), is a full re-enactment of Sanders' 2010 filibuster against the Bush Tax Cuts for the wealthy. In his filibuster, Senator Sanders touches on ideas regarding class, the economy, and the history of capitalism. Projected behind artist Alicia Grullón was a slide show of art work found in the US Senate House, sugarcane, and a flag of Puerto Rico, a present colony of the United States. The full length of the filibuster, and of the performance, is 8.5 hours. As an integral part of her artistic practice, Grullón creates social interventions and performative re-enactments that assert the lived experiences of people left out of, or in this case central, to history. By inserting herself into the Senator’s role, the reenactment also became the retelling of a historic moment from a woman of color's point of view, and thusly charged with new cultural, social, and political import.