Exhibition Opening

Migrations

neiiKAI [we walk around…], Dinétah diyogíj, Eric-Paul Rienge, 62”x38”, 2017

MIGRATIONS

curated by Candy Nartonis and Ellen Babcock

March 2 – March 30 , 2018

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, March 2, 6-9pm

Migrations contextualizes human migration so that it can be mourned, accepted, embraced, and even in some circumstances celebrated. In our present world, millions of people have been forced to leave their homes. Political danger, famine, earthquakes, fire, rising water, and personal tragedy have caused so many human beings, world-wide, to experience displacement.  Forced migration and movement made by choice are two sides of this range of journeys motivated by survival and by dreams of a better life. Important to this story are the migrations to find better and more suitable work and to reconnect with family.

Albuquerque as a city and Alburqueños as a people recognize the richness that migrations have brought to our state. As a group we have been particularly sensitive to the problems our new neighbors encounter. We reached out to many concerned groups while we planned this exhibition and the related events. They have all helped tell this story of current and historic migration.

Migrations touches on the sanctuary movement, the difficulty of crossing national borders, and threats of deportation. It will include community members who migrated or have family stories to tell. We’ll include supporting materials such as maps and histories. A room representing a safe place will fill the center of the gallery space.  Inside this space, you will hear personal accounts of forced exodus, uprooted families, war and political and natural events that compel people to move. You will be able to add your own story or consider what you would do if you found yourself in this situation.

Artists and scholars contributing to the exhibition:

Ellen Babcock, Adam Herrera, Evey Jones, Israel F. Haros Lopez, Troy Lovato, David Mora, Candy Nartonis, Zeke Peña, Reed Perkins, Eric-Paul Riege, Jim Roeber, Carol Weber

Related Events:

Sunday, March 4: New Mexicans in Movement: off-site

First of the series: Sunday, March 4, 10am-12pm

We are sponsoring a series of guided walks to interact, share and connect with New Mexican global wanderers; persons for whom migration has defined their lives and the personality of our state. Among the hosts are successful innovators, former diplomats, misfits, multi-generational New Mexicans, as well as recent arrivals. These walks are created by Sidni Lamb at Mindful New Mexico. Check Mindful New Mexico website

http://www.mindfulnewmexico.com/ for dates, locations, and descriptions of walks in the series.

Saturday, March 10: 7pm, The Sanitary Tortilla Factory

Israel F. Haros Lopez performs Mexican Jazz

Poems of migration from his recent publication of Mexican Jazz, a graphic codex novel about women and children in detention centers. He will also be reading excerpts form his latest works, La Llorona Xronciles and Ghostbraids. La llorona Xronicles retells the classic story of La Llorona, the weeping woman and interrupts narratives of myths and oral histories. Ghostbraids is an exploration of Chicano poetry, experimenting with bilingualism, immigration and diverse poetic forms, visual poetry, improvisation and soundscapes, each reading of these works become site specific.

Saturday, March 24, 5-7pm, The Sanitary Tortilla Factory

Potluck Dinner and Music: you are all invited to this celebration of gifts. Bring a food offering from your homeland, write your family history, meet others.

We’ll supply plates and forks, drinks, and food from around the world.

Interior Landscapes

31°19’19.10”N; 109°29’47.62”W: And Golden Light, 2017, video still, courtesy of Bockley Gallery

POSTCOMMODITY     ERIC PAUL-RIEGE 

M. JENEA SANCHEZ     TARA EVONNE TRUDELL

INTERIOR LANDSCAPES          

JANUARY 26 – FEBRUARY 23, 2018

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, January 26^th 6-9pm

Performances: Opening night 7pm and February 23rd 7pm

Interior Landscapes is an exhibition presented by Sanitary Tortilla Factory and 516 ARTS as part of a collaboration for “The US-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibility”. Interior Landscapes co-curated by Daryl Lucero and sheri crider. The exhibition focus is on the lived experience of people on the U.S.-Mexico border. Elemental to these stories are the absence of political demarcations. Where the border suggests a bifurcation of territoriality, there also exists the space between the north and south.

The artists in this exhibit find themselves living in varying proximities with the border—Arizona, New Mexico, and Sonora. Although the artists vary in social, cultural, and geographical distances, the work engages communities situated on the border. The works are collaborative and signify the reciprocal nature in which borders can be negotiated, and recreated to benefit those within them.

The works are examples of socially engaged art that humanize the border wall and its symbol of national identity, culture, and politics. And what we see are the acts that speak to living in a place of tension, violence, and creativity. The border becomes possessed by the humanity of those within it. What we witness are the stories, experiences, and truths not of the artists, but through the medium of conversation between the artists and communities. We witness the creativity of people and place.

In Border Tapestry (2009) M. Jenea Sanchez teases the absence of the border wall by transforming its purpose to divide and uses it to unite. Sanchez utilizes the steel structure as a loom to weave, to recall and connect to the “familial roots of the border communities, the families that are separated by the fence, and the days when movement across was more fluid and natural rather than militarized.”

Tara Evonne Trudell’s work physically transforms the words and messages of those living within the border area. Tara Evonne Trudell hosts poetry workshops with communities situated on the border. In these workshops, participants create poems that are then created into beads which become long strands of poetry. Tara Evonne Trudell see this work as a way to “address the realities of trying to cross the border: a trip plagued with dangerous environments and a heavily militarized zone.”

From the outside looking in, the border can be flat and two-dimensional. These works bring to light the life within. The border is animated, mocked, teased, and made human.

Click here to read the exhibition brochure

Thank you to 516 ARTS for making this exhibition possible.

516 ARTS US-Mexico Boarder Program Guide

Click Here

The Alchemical Trace: Transformation and Resilience in Recent Work by LGBTQIA Artists

“Earl”, Earl McBride, 48×36″ 2016, courtesy of Richard Levy Gallery

October 6th-November 3rd, 2017

Opening Reception: October 6th, 6-9pm 

Curated by art historian, Ray Hernández-Durán, The Alchemical Trace: Transformation and Resilience in Recent Work by LGBTQIA Artists is an exhibition meant to open in conjunction with the 15th annual Southwest Gay Lesbian Film Festival, the largest event of its kind in this region of the country. With a focus on resistance, adaptation, and survival, the exhibition will include recent work by a diverse group of emerging LGBTQIA-identified artists from NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, L.A., Las Vegas, and Albuquerque, who address themes of healing, growth, memory, and persistence in their art. In addition to the exhibition, there will be a lecture series, art film screenings, and an exhibition catalogue that will be free to the public.