 organization. And so we are so excited to be able to welcome our very own board member, Yvonne Gallardo, coming in from California. Thank you for making it out here. So it's my pleasure to have this moment to introduce a formidable artist in the field. She's an Alec Fund for the Arts grantee. She's an international artist who comes in from Argentina via Miami. She's been working there for 10 years now. Really a big fan of her work. Multidisciplinary artist has won quite a few awards and has exhibited across the globe. And not only has she made work that is inspiring and aesthetically powerful, but it's also work that really reports back from the edges of social justice, reporting back from the edges of what it means to bring communities together and bring communities together in a way that really heightens an aesthetic experience at the same time. So I'm really happy to have this opportunity to introduce Agustina Wodkei who's coming in from Florida to moderate the next panel. I am very pleased and honored to moderate this panel today. We're gonna be talking about art and social activism, which I find an incredibly complicated topic. So I am very excited about this conversation and how can we unpack both the art and the activism and if there's a way to somewhat find a balance between them. So as the program suggests, we will be here with the four local cultural workers discussing strategies and practices for linking arts, culture and social justice in a way that does not use the art as a tool, but actually as an integral practice for community building. So it is my pleasure to introduce Graciela Sanchez and each of you I will introduce them one by one and then we'll do a little presentation on the work. Graciela comes from Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. We are the survivors of physical and cultural genocide. Among the charred ruins of our communities, we search for remnants of the massacred. The conquest has left us empty. Los de poder nos hacen invisible, invisible even to ourselves. To defeat us, to take our land, our language, to enslave and control us, they make us the ugly, the stupid, the lazy, the dangerous and violent. We are their greatest fear. Even less is said about the benefits gained from our crippled bodies and minds. In this condition, we serve them. We scrub their toilets, mop their floors, wash their clothes, prepare their food, cut their lawns, pick up their garbage, sing to their children, bathe their parents, pedicure their feet and reassure them that racism is a thing of the past. Still, they only talk about the violence in our barrios and fill our neighborhood streets with cops and jails. I have been working at the Esperanza as a buena gente, a multi-issue social justice cultural center for over 30 years. It's going to turn 30, but you help to organize it and plan it so you get a little more time there. Esperanza began by women of color cultural workers, dykes of working class background. We work to change the culture of violence that has so devastated our homes, our communities, our cultures, sorry, and our world. Understanding the history of physical and cultural genocide, the buena gente of the Esperanza work to revive our communities, to restore connection among individuals and families, to re-educate ourselves and our young people, and to nurture our healthy lives despite the racist, sexist classes, trans, and homophobic violence that surrounds us. We do this through programming that speaks to our communities that creates and builds a community of justice, compassion, cariño, respeto, y paz. With the theories of Gloria Anzaldua, Audrey Lord, Shuri Moraga, and many other queer women of color, in addition to our gueditas, doña Panchita, doña Chavezita, we build the Esperanza. We have worked along with our community in organizing, conscientizando nuestra comunidad, to defeat anti-immigrant policies, to stop wars and the violence and torture in our ongoing neoliberal policies, and to stop the privatization of our water. With film screenings, we give first-hand accounts on the occupation of Palestine or the ongoing effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement in this country, in Mexico and China, throughout the world. We have hosted hundreds of gueditas with legendary sheroes like Gloria Anzaldua, when no other cultural space or university would open their doors to such a genius. And other mujeres such as Dolores Huerta, Barbara Smith, Betita Martinez, and Angela Davis have graced our community space. Susana Vaca and Lila Downs have offered free, well, we have a program them for free concerts in the community, and we have also brought in elders like the rediscovered Tesoros de San Antonio. We have produced world premiere theater presentations for 20- and 30-year-old queer voices such as Anel Flores' Empanada and Jesus Alonso's Jotos del Barrio, while also supporting Ben Guerrero's Gay Tino. We've proudly hosted the first AIDS and gay art exhibits in the state of Texas in the late 80s, when it wasn't cool to be queer and gave voice to Anna Fernandez, Franco Mondini, and David Zamora Casas. And we continue to fight city hall and local developers as they displaced 300 individuals from their trailer homes, or they continue to tear down a community in order to bring in the new folks who will teach us how to improve our lives and be prosperous. That's, of course, if we don't get gentrified out of the neighborhoods first. Yet as we do this, and as we reach more and more people in our communities, we are attacked. They come after us. We have been threatened from every direction. We have struggled with allies. As the men sought to divide us, Mujeres warned the women of Fuerza Unida to move away from the dykes, had us evicted because we pushed for a broader vision of social justice that was multi-racial, multi-generational, with Mujeres in positions of leadership, addressing multiple forms of oppression, by race, gender, sexuality, disability, and age. Then right when Christians came after us with support from gay, white male conservatives, had us defunded from all local arts funding. In the 29 years our offices have been broken into, our computers have been stolen, our equipment destroyed, our windows broken, our lives threatened, human feces smeared on bras and hung over our cars and door entries. And daily we can be assured that someone is writing negative stories about our work and vision, or making sure that we once again don't get funded from some local foundation. Just received a letter a couple of days ago. We are working to change the culture of violence and greed and profit over people, and asking each other to claim the values taught to us by our venitas, of being buena gente and bien educado, of being honest and truthful, of taking care of one another, of respecting the elders, be they human, buildings, trees, or our madre tierra, of sharing our limited resources so that we all benefit, not just a few. And the work has to be a lifetime commitment. The work has to be of service to and for community. The work we do must be with a habit of self-examination and a commitment to justice. I would like to invite Maria Hernandez. Hello everyone. My name is Maria Hernandez and I am going to talk about myself. I'm going to talk about the ways in which my role is a community member. As someone, I consider myself a community servant, my role in the community and how I connect art and activism. So first, I am a member and a co-founder of the Chicana Art Collective, Matrugas. Matrugas is made up of four of us. Myself, Sara Castillo, Ruth Wenteo, and Kristen Gametz. We started making work in 2009 specifically in response to the lack of representation of Chicanas in the art community. We would go out to exhibitions, mostly contemporary art exhibitions, and we were a little dismayed by the fact that we weren't represented in a city that is 65% Latino. So what we decided to do was respond in a way, in a visual way, through art. My role as an educator, which stems from my work at an organization not too far from here called San Anto Cultural Arts. San Anto Cultural Arts has two main programs. They have a mural program. They are the biggest contributor to public art in the city of San Antonio. And they also have a legendary newspaper called El Blakasso. Thank you. I was the manager of El Blakasso for three years in my community work and volunteer work where San Anto started in early 2000. So I feel like the education and the development that I got through San Anto Cultural Arts was extremely unique and has helped put me on a creative path. I definitely wouldn't be where I am today without their help. While that San Anto Cultural Arts, I was a volunteer. I worked full-time and I ran a youth-based program, which opened up other doors for me in other youth-based organizations throughout the city. My role as an artist entails supporting other artists. Recently, I'm sure many of you are aware of the conflict that happened between Contemporary Art Month and the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. That was a big deal for many of us. And I worked with a good friend of mine, my fellow Luda, Cristin Gámez, in order to respond in a positive, visual way to something that was a very sensitive subject for all of us. And we didn't know exactly how to articulate ourselves, so we thought we would respond visually. So in order to respond to a conflict that dealt with the exclusion or lack of representation of Latina artists in a very large art setting, we decided to hold our own show. We talked to the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center and they allowed us to host our show in the gallery, which is right across the street. That show, Novela, Art Day and Drama, was an art exhibit featuring works inspired by the Tela Novela, and it was in direct response to the exclusion of Latina artists within Contemporary Art Month. Also, within my personal work, I am an artist. While I do make work with Mastrudas, I also make work on my own. And what I'm really interested in is, again, the lack of representation of people of color, Chicanas, Latinas, Latinx within the Contemporary Art Field. I have an interest in art history. And so this specific work and the work that I am currently created is in direct response to that lack of representation. This piece is now hanging in the Guadalupe Gallery. It is based on a historical art piece by Artemisio Gentileschi, who was a Baroque painter in the early 1900s. And what I have done is I have inserted myself into the story, into this art image, which is historical in a way to insert myself into that history. So through those different avenues, through those four different components, the work I do, I try to link art and activism. Thank you. Mary Gantu. This is a volunteer organization, and we're now raising funds to become a full-time effort in San Antonio. And it started with our materials giveaways at our Fine Arts Fair. Our responsibility is to educate the public about reuse and not recycling through the arts. Teachers, nonprofits, and the creative community on one day right before the beginning of the school year come together and grab as many supplies and materials we've collected by businesses and individuals. Donors give pre-owned items. Nothing new is accepted. As a result, we divert tons of stuff from landfills. I founded Spare Parts because I was in a position to teach a few years back visual arts that was given absolutely no money for supplies, right? We've been there. You're supposed to have a job to accomplish, and you don't have any resources for it. So I started looking for supplies, and I met a artist and teacher-friendly business in town that sold, I'm sorry, that gave me and filled my car full of materials that they couldn't use anymore, scraps that they thought that were important to educators and artists, and they filled my car up and asked me to come back with U-Haul. And at that point, I realized I could serve my community and arts community and our educational community through being the connector between materials that we think sometimes can be discarded, but in the right hands can be very successful. Art lessons, art projects, and rich curriculum lessons. You know, a lot of teachers spend their own money on supplies. So what we do is educate the public about things like e-waste, and this is Karina, she's really excited about our e-waste, make take it apart and make it art projects. We get to engage with the public from youth to adults to challenge them to rethink the things around them, because there really is no such thing as throwing things away. And I refuse to let the arts disappear from our community. This is my mission and passion. We also have the Mini Art Museum, which is a portable museum. You know, museums were founded by white people to show off the shit that they collected on their travels, and we decided to... It's true. So what we decided to do was make the fine arts experience, take control. Gabriella, Santiago, and I use binders as the gallery walls, and we ask artists to create miniature artworks for display in the Mini Art Museum that's traveled all over the world. And we get to take control of the curatorial aspect and allow others to view our work. A lot of museums are not accessible to people, so that's another project we have. That is what Spare Parts is about, and never forget that trash is a failure of the imagination. Thank you. Lastly, I would like to introduce Diana Lopez. So our work is primarily based around workers. My organization is called Southwest Workers Union, and we're a little bit different than most organizations because we started out as a workers union with school workers. We have two workers, bus drivers, and custodians. But what we also realized in that process of talking about liberation and human rights was that a lot of the workers lived in industrial areas, didn't have access to grocery stores, lived and were the objects of pollution and contamination. So then we started talking about environmental justice. And then we started talking about youth justice and in the schools. Ultimately, our work revolves around the different areas that affect our workers and our members. We're 3,000 members strong, which includes teachers, workers in the schools, youth, residents, and kind of the list goes on and on, right? Because our community is developed of different people. So a few years ago, we started buying some land with some membership dues. So an important piece of our work is sort of this context around owning land, right? And this context, and historically, Chicanos, Black folks, anybody who had any type of color in their body was not able to own land. And in reality, we're the objects of violence, right? So it was important for us to have our own space that we could create and development into what we wanted. So zoom in to 2016, our work is really around developing a worker center community space. So we hold the movement gallery, which is sort of a space that is transformative. It used to be a barbershop for 50 years. So in the sense of keeping that community space as as as a space of, you know, barbershops, you know, beauty salons is where you go get your cheese man, you go meet with family, right? You don't know this. So we wanted to keep that sense. And we also understood that that a space needed to be transformed and informed by by the community surrounding it. So right now it's, it's home to to Universidad Sifronteras, University Without Borders, which is a political emancipatory educational program. And I know there's, there's some students in the crowd right now and some coordinators. So I'm it's, it's really sort of a space that that transformed right now, we're getting ready for May first International Workers Day, which is Sunday, which part part of this was was really being able to use and develop our workers as artists and sort of understand that there is no no middle line between an artist and a worker or student, right? It's all meshed together, right? Our world, our world and this idea of categorizing people according to how you look, how you your sexual orientation, you know, different pieces like like that also works to divide our community. And many times, we work to to decolonize minds, right? Decolonize the way we see each other and the way we work with with with each other. So so part of that art show is really being able to show the point of view of workers. And in the sense, sort of the style of our organizing is really able to be community led community member led and is informed by by the work that that we do. So in talking about social justice and art, it's really something that that is mixed. It's there is no there is no divide. And what you see and what you feel is is informed by by by by the identity that and by where you come from by by how by how you've been categorized. And in the sense of our work, and what we want to accomplish is really self determination of our communities. It's it's about speaking for yourself as a worker, as a student, as a community resident and to be able to then create the community that you would like to live in because oftentimes we see there's a disconnect between policy, there's a disconnect between the transformation of your community. Right now, we're facing gentrification on the east side, we're facing displacement. So it's in order for us to really be able to not be displaced and be stronger, we need to really look at the way we categorize the way we review things in a sense of us being part of that decision making process, to be the architects of our community, the architects of policy, rather than the objects. And that that's kind of what I have to say, and I'm really excited to be here and having this this conversation because we're we're continuing to to decolonize the way we we review organizations the way we view our communities. And this is a continuing struggle that we hope to keep having. And my time is up and thank you. Decided to bring my notebook because I have all sorts of notes. And still sort of formulating this eternal question between the relationship of art and activism. Personally, I am in a very similar position in a way of the role that I occupy myself also in the community that I exist in this between one and the other. And this negotiation, I find it quite, quite challenging. So I would like to hear your, your thoughts and some of what discussed and unpack art, but also activism. And if there is a way for an artist to be political, or for a politician to be studiesized, which I think is where the complexity really begins. So in very in you, you most of them somewhat touched on it. But I think that it would be good to hear what role art plays in your organizations. I mean, you yourself are an artist, but you also run an organization, yes, and a collective. But I would like you to answer this question in the place of art, not necessarily of activism. I do work for a contemporary art museum called Blue Star Contemporary. I'm new to the museum. And the reason why I took the job at Blue Star Contemporary was because I wanted to learn more about contemporary art. I wanted to learn how the contemporary art operated. And it's a form of education for myself. And so I really feel like my work within the museum setting complements all of the other components of the work that I do. And it helps me maybe get an education that I would not be getting otherwise in terms of I have a degree in English, I don't have an MFA. So it really is a way of educating myself on the role of art and contemporary art and how it is reflected within the city. So I part of my, I have two different lifestyles. And part of the other part of my life is I'm part of a dance troupe called Zombie Bazaar Fransa Fusion. We recently won a second place in the burlesque category for the current. The formation of that group was really being able to visually address social issues. So a lot of the songs and a lot of the movement is based on sort of our identity is based on sort of the issues that are surrounding us. So there's a lot of different songs and pieces that we dance to that address violence against women that address. There's one on Primero de Mayo May 1st. And there's a few others that really talk about being queer, talk about being brown, talk about being proud, and really talk about changing the system that we live in. And I think this emphasizes this need to all around have art and expression as part of our everyday work and our everyday lives. And I think in the sense of the organization I work for, we've never caught ourselves a cultural organization. It wasn't until a few years ago that we were organizers. We go out into the community and mobilize folks and do popular education. So the question of art and how do we integrate it was only a tool. And it wasn't until we needed to intentionally talk about weaving art and culture and community into social justice that we started actually building up our space as a cultural community center. And but it needed that intentional, you know, we now have have our organizer who's who's somewhere in the crowd, Kimberly Rendon, who's done really major strides towards towards weaving together these two aspects of our work and our, you know, 27 years of organizing workers, and sort of this new challenge that that we now bring each other with the space that we have, and sort of this need to integrate it and to have more of a structured art type of organization. And for spare parts, arts and community has a symbiotic relationship, much like how many of you can easily go into your kitchen and make a great meal with what you have without the recipe. Is anyone really good at that? So that's what we do and almost like farm to table. If you give us a project, if we want to collaborate with you, we we source materials, we see what's in in people's garages, closets, even even going into recycled warehouses and pulling stuff out before they're recycled to for reuse. So we collaborate with organizations and agencies that want to engage in the arts, but we work with the materials that we have. So we we kind of sometimes do the opposite of what other artists do, which is I want to make a painting. Therefore, I need to go by paint. Our goal is to work with a person, a group and say, what are your goals for the art program, the art project, the performance, and how can we create it in a sustainable way that causes that that has a very low carbon footprint, and that is sustainable. And when we leave, it's very successful after working with them is that they're educated on what we use is and sourcing materials. And knowing that the materials that we're using are accessible to anybody and are very inexpensive and are usually free. So so community and art is is one in the same. And because of that, we make an environmental statement with our work. I think again, for the Esperanza, we've always again seen the connection or the more we do the work, the more we try to avoid this whole separation, I think it's a US concept, or a class sort of thing. So maybe US and Europe, as you were mentioning, or somebody was mentioned, like the exhibits became because, you know, I bought a piece. And if I want the valley to go up, I'm going to put it in the exhibit, and then somebody's going to appraise it because it wasn't the exhibit. And I'm going to get the I'm going to hire the critic who's going to say that it's important and valuable. And so the value goes up. And it all becomes a capitalist, you know, consumer based sort of reality, rather than say the woman who made this piece, you know, she she won't identify herself as an artist. But we would say a brilliant artist. But this person, you know, for me, when I were these domicotones and we feel this, it's also to remind myself of my people, even though I've been separated from them because now I live here, but this person probably got paid $5 and whoever it's a birthday present, so I don't know how much they paid for this. But I know by the time it's being sold here, you know, it's been double triple quadrupled in price. And that person still lives in poverty. And the in between people are probably just taking a lot of advantage of that. But the colors are there because they have history and tradition. You know, sometimes I think of the red is when I think of what the mother and the weebile is there. And I think of the blood that has been spilled, you know, because of us based wars that are taking place there because we want their land because we want their resources and will do whatever, you know, to create that reality or maintain that reality for them. So I mean, I think we just it's hard to do this whole arts and cultural thing. Because I know, as the, you know, when I had the Esperanza, also known for myself, you know, being around there for the longest time, you know, when you have to sign from to write a grant, they need an executive director. So we become executive directors, even though we don't like titles and we don't like hierarchies. But we sign that. And then I know from the community, it's like nobody wants to take on those roles as arts administrators, because we're administrators, we stop being artists. But you know, and then they say, Well, you know, it's not as valuable. And so I like to also challenge and say, Well, okay, if I'm gonna have to be an artist, I'm gonna be an installation artist, because I put people together and ideas together and formulate those things. But it's, you know, but it's also it's this whole thing about separating, you know, artists, activists, academics, and their hierarchies and, and it's, it's, it's really defeating, I think, because we need to all be working together. And so I think we should challenge those notions, you know, and I think I've said it, and I heard Diana said earlier today, I mean, as we dress up, we're, we're being creative and we're defining, you know, we're all dressed totally different. But we all took time to think about how we were going to dress today. And what we were, you know, and so that is the artist in all of us. This is, I think that also, what you're saying is interesting in the sense that from an artist's place, or actually, I don't sometimes I wish I could sign paperwork as an administrator to be taken seriously. You know, in the sense where what is really the role of artists? Am I falling into entertaining and decorating houses? Because I do art? Or can I be taken seriously in city planning and development projects, and actually become an architect of my city? Being an artist, I don't want to be an architect, I want to be an artist having this role. So I think as long as we put out the work and the vision and the values of justice, we're not going to be taken seriously. I'm not taken seriously ever. You know, I mean, it's not to say that people don't respect the work, but it's I think because I've been there for such a long time. But it's not because I'm able to sign as a director. I think hopefully, we all understand that as we continue to work for social, economic, environmental and gender justice and, and, you know, destroy, you know, the world of, you know, greed and violence and capitalism and consumerism, that we do that successfully, we're not going to they're going to make it a point to this, you know, to, to dehumanize us to devalue our words, you know, everything. I mean, San Antonio, as we talked about earlier, I mean, a few months last month, we were all having the struggle around contemporary art month in San Antonio, 65% are Latinos, right? And of those Latinos, the majority are Latina women. And they, you know, the contemporary arts month folks didn't have a problem, it's not having any Latina artists. And then there was a follow up conversation, and there were no Latina artists on that panel. And that was really problematic. I don't know how. But you know, again, so who are they silencing more in the city is Latina women. And I wouldn't just say this town, you know, it's throughout the world. But so here, and great that you bring the topic because then I wonder, what is really the is it, is it really possible to, to penetrate political change through art, when you have relentlessly these situations of having an art exhibition, then you have a panel, and then continuously is the same, the same behavior, right from whoever is organizing these, the community is reacting through one through an exhibition, is it an exhibition enough to actually create the change, or at least begin. And this goes actually to you who organized this exhibition, what is the follow up, what happened afterwards? Maybe to answer the question about trying to bridge that work as an administrator and a work as an artist, I don't know. I think it's really difficult. And I know it's something that I personally struggle with. But I do find that they complement each other. Because my role as an artist, I need to know certain things, I need to know how to ask myself, I need to know what questions to ask. And then my training or development as an administrator helps with that. And so in response or in reference to the exhibition, the exhibition came up, it's still up. There was a great response, there were articles written about it. But the conversation definitely needs to keep on happening. I hope that people don't feel deflated. And they don't, you know, it's sort of like this ebb and flow. And, you know, we were up here now, what's happening now. With the exhibition, Kristen Gammas and I have decided that we are proposing to the artists to try and tour the exhibit. So we're trying to put together a catalog and we're trying to get it out on a national level. We don't really know how to do that. But I think that we between both of us that we can try. And we can locate spaces and museums and cities where there are, where there is a need and where they may be wanting to show the space. So taking those steps to keep the conversation going and what I think happened a lot with this conflict is a lot of people around me realized how they were being devalued and at the same time how much power they have. I think in San Antonio, the community here is extremely supportive. I think that we're hungry. We want representation. We want to see ourselves. We are makers. We're creators. And if you do something, you're going to be supported. You're going to be helped out. It's very easy to find a space on your own in order to have a show. And this is something that I feel has been going on for generations in terms of the artists here, like they're doing it on their own. And so by doing those things and realizing the power that you have in doing whatever you want on your own is a way to keep the conversation going. And then maybe taking a look at what's happening on a national level, which Nalak does a great way of assisting us do that. What is happening on a national level that is reflected in your local community and how can you insert yourself into a national conversation? Because I'll say more. Yeah, I've been, I've been thinking a little bit too. And what everybody is saying is extremely powerful. And I think change doesn't come just from one strategy, right? And that's that's something important to talk about. Because many times when we collaborate, there is a need to say, Okay, y'all got to do what I what I what I think is is is the real thing, right? Versus I'm doing my thing, you're doing your thing, you're doing your thing, you're doing your thing, and that's cool. As long as we got a big goal, as long as where we got one vision of how of how and what our community looks like. And I think that's that's the most important piece is that many times we fight over what strategy is correct. When in reality, there's many, many strategies that are correct and okay, and we're going to change our community. And there isn't one, one that's that's more important than the other being an architect isn't more important than being an artist. Just because I'm a director, I never stopped being a dia, I never stopped being being a dancer, I never stopped being an organizer, right? It's just, and just because I'm a director does not mean that I got automatic power, right? I could sign, I could sign checks and you know, like, like Graciela said, I could, you know, make the grants. But but it doesn't mean that that that I I have the power to change the world, right? And I think that's that's an understanding and that's extremely important when, when doing this work and having representation at the city level is that we need to really think and step back and talk about what does it mean to have a solidarity economy? What does it mean to have environmental justice? What does it mean to have a living wage for both not only workers in the school, but also artists? And what does that look like? So there's a lot of questions that that we have, but there's isn't enough conversation and coming together about how each of us is addressing this work, and that it's okay to address it in different ways. And one of the things that Spare Parts is very aware of is the idea of being Roscoe Ache and Roscoe Fissma. Does everyone know what that? No? Okay, so it's being, I've heard the simple definition of like Mexican or Chicano ingenuity, but it's about creating the most from the least. So really working with what you have to make things happen. And so Spare Parts acknowledges the culture of being Roscoe Ache in our culture and knowing that my grandmother still cleans out her plastic bags and hangs them on the clothes line to reuse them and that she cleans out her foil to reuse them. And that's just a way of life to honor that that the generations that because they had no choice but to do that and to bring that into the world of, you know, programs and more mainstream and listening to their stories. You know, it's not only just creative making and brainstorming with you, but hearing about the five sisters who their moms couldn't afford for each of them to have a pair of white gloves to go to church every Saturday and look nice. So she only was able to buy several, you know, three pair, two pair, and they wore a glove on one hand and a white sock on the other. Hearing the stories of that honoring our past and and taking it to, you know, venues like this where they're not always here for to be a part of this conversation, but to know that that's extremely valuable and that's where we're coming from with what we do. What I wanted to say five minutes ago, I don't know what I wanted to say because y'all are saying great stuff. So I guess one of the things that you did say something about, Deanna, about having there are many strategies, but just having that vision. And I do think, again, part of what I was trying to say earlier on is that we have to understand the, you know, the institutions of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, class and all that sort of stuff sometimes limit us to have that same vision. So again, if we just, I mean, why did we strike out twice on having Latina women on, you know, in an exhibit and also in a forum, right? And I know because somebody told me that, but some of our names came up to speak at that forum and we were xed out and we were xed out not just by white people, but by people of color as well, right? Because sometimes they don't want to hear some of our voices. Many times they don't want to hear our voices. So, you know, again, how does homophobia, transphobia, feminist, politics, visions, you know, make us disappear? Esperanza, you know, I worked at institutions that were civil rights organizations that Southwest voter registration at Maldiv, you know, men were in charge and the women were the secretaries. Men were, 30 years ago, men were making 40,000 as directors and the women were making nine and ten thousand dollars and they didn't have any time insurance when they got pregnant until the husband of one of, you know, the wife of one of the men got pregnant. It's like, oh, maybe we should consider having something for insurance for my wife, you know? So, and again, nobody even talked about the queer issue, right? And so, and in a challenge by artists and other cultural spaces, because they're not involved, you know, on the water issue and, you know, we're concerned about what's going on in our communities, but when people can't pay their water because we've got this stupid pipeline that's coming down and it's going to be at the backs of our people, why aren't we all out there demonstrating and speaking to our council members, you know? You know, so it's the challenge that, you know, on not just that issue but so many issues that we only go before the council when it's affecting us specifically with our arts funding or something there, but not when we, that we should think in terms of the larger community rather than just... Yes, to bring it back to the, to the, to the topic of the talk, which I think what you're saying is incredibly valuable, but now I want to throw art in there, because that's also the challenge of this conversation is art and social activism, which I think is incredibly conflicting, but at the same time incredibly powerful in the sense that exactly what you're saying, you are not being, you are still not being invited to the panel, you weren't invited to the exhibition, you weren't also invited to the panel. I come back to this example as a placeholder, as an example, right, but this only puts even more power to art, the role that art plays, because obviously if you are being excluded, then there is something very powerful about what is not being said, I think actually what is not being said is more powerful than what is being said, right, in this case, and I think about the political fear, the political fear becoming steady-sized and the politicians becoming so aware of the production of images, specifically with media coverage, for example, and then this also puts in this tension the position of art, is art again decorating and steady-sizing politics and actually this somewhat loses power in this way or is it the other way around, is it actually understanding art as this powerful communicative tool, so powerful that even Obama used his shepherd fairy for his posters in his campaign? I think that that can be viewed in a couple of different ways, for instance the work of Sanofa Cultural Arts, which is an organization that I mentioned earlier, right down the street, they have a legendary mural program, they have created, I believe, 48, 49 year olds since it's been 20 years now, right, since the organization started, and so the creation of those murals, we understand the history of murals and the power that they have to build up a community, it's community building to preserve histories, to preserve stories, to tell the story of people that is not being written down and may not be told otherwise, that's a lot of power when it comes to combining art and politics, and then you have the other side of the coin where you mentioned where Obama is using shepherd fairy in order to create his political campaign posters, and you even think about the history of printmaking and printmaking was a way to create a large amount of material at a low cost, and the use of printmaking over time for political purposes, we have it here, we have an artist here that we love, who's our tease, that oftentimes makes political posters, and it's, you know, there's history there, right, and so I feel like it can be, I think I lost my train of thought, let me add something on this mural topic before you move away, which actually has going back to some of the things that you mentioned, Graciela in this commercialization and this capitalist way of looking at things, I've been living in Miami for the last 10 years, wow, I don't know if any of you here have ever been to Miami, but there is this one neighborhood called Wimwood that has become hell because of murals, so in this one particular way and the history of murals and how they tell stories, etc, etc, in this one precise neighborhood through the process of place-making, it has transformed as a neighborhood of the community into this tourist empty attraction that does nothing to anybody other than a thousand selfies being posted online with all these walls that are, they're just paintings that are decorating the walls, there is nothing else there, so here is that other side of coin where I see wonderful organization that has been doing murals for 20 years, meanwhile you have another neighborhood that has put up I think four times more murals in only two years, commercializing, capitalizing on this idea of the history of the mural to take it to this other place where it actually affects the way that we look at murals, I don't even stop at murals anymore, I lost interest and maybe I am, you know, murals anywhere, I lost interest in general with murals because of this overestidization of a neighborhood that now is completely fake, it's an attraction, a tourist trap. So I think that the purpose of art can be a whole conversation, a whole conference on its own, for art for art's sake, to art for political reasons, for all sorts of ways, that's a tough question to answer I think, but I think one of our responsibilities is to teach visual literacy to people to be able to think critically about what they're seeing, the messages that are coming from the things that we see, and what choices do we make when we see those images, whether it's to have to buy something or act or pass it on but visual literacy and understanding how to read what's around us is so important in educational terms. On that thought, I had the honor to take a class about a few months ago with a wonderful professor and he introduced to me the concept or term of visual activism, kind of like to merge these things that we're talking about of the power of the image and how as artists, okay, there is all these movements and there is all these activists going on, how as artists we create an image, specifically understanding the role of technology that today is playing, that one image, I mean already this. It's enough said, right? So I don't know. And I guess, I mean one has to be conscious of what all is going on. I mean we have, I mean you saw the photos from the Photo Historia project which came out of just asking our community to tell their stories. I mean again, this is this beautiful historic neighborhood which still is stereotyped as, you know, the worst part of the town to live in, right? And it's also still, after millions of dollars, if not more than that, billions of dollars spent in trying to fix up the neighborhood, it's still the poorest in the city. So when we did the Photo Historia, it was as we were just to gather oral histories and our women didn't speak so it was like bring your photos and they brought their photos and then, but they brought their husbands and their sons photos and it's like bring your own photo. Anyway, long story short, the photos were, we put them up as a community museum, right? Not for anybody else, not for the tourists, it was for this community. And sure enough, it became something that, you know, the tourist community was like, let's come in, there's like, we don't want you here, you know, leave us, you know, this is still for the community, we want to go and expand further in all the other directions and we start, we saw how that was really quickly appropriated by the Tourism Council, so all of a sudden they highlighted the Witte, the Southley School of Art, the McNay and all in historical photos on St. Mary's and Commerce and then all of a sudden I'm walking down market and then there are all these photos of people without names, without history, but you know, so they took them on, you know, but more importantly what is exciting for me is when the Chicago Elevate is saying we want to do that same thing or Apple, Leica community working class folks when they want to do it, it's like if they're appropriating, it's not appropriate, it's like, let us share our ideas with you as murals have become, but because it is about grounding our community and totally, and that's our problem when sometimes, you know, it's exciting, you know, suddenly be recognized by by these major institutions, so sometimes, yeah, give us a million dollars and we'll let you have that image and we forget what it's doing to the larger community and it's and that whole idea of place making versus place keeping has been a struggle so for us it's like we're nervous about all that gentrification, we know what's going on the east side and everywhere else, so we want to build our community with all the actors involved and necessary that they decide what the future is, but we have to be conscious that everybody else is ready and to capitalize on it we have 10 minutes left so it would be nice to open up to questions or thoughts if anybody in the audience has any My name is Joey, I just wanted to make like a little assertion, it sounded like a lot of what, you know, when we talked about visual art and the commercialization of visual art, one of the things that I've always seen really hard for Latino artists is that you know a lot of artists come from really hard backgrounds and are being told to get a job, get benefits, get a house, have some kids, all those kinds of things and then as activists and as artists we tell them, follow your dreams, do your art and somewhere in between they have to make money right somewhere in between there's like the space from following your dreams and doing art and being an activist to having to provide and have a family and I noticed, you know, one of the things that's real hard for us to do is create a trajectory both as an artist and as somebody that's a facilitator so that people can feel empowered along that way to making things that don't end up becoming guerrilla advertising for Microsoft, but become something that's sustainable for them to empower their community while not gentrifying their community to be able to come back to their community having been educated, having gone through these other experiences, but also being able to identify and respect where they came from in such a way as to foster and help those communities have the things that they think they want if that makes sense like the things that that the community still wants and that's something I've seen happen in small towns like Crystal City, Texas and a lot of others small towns around Texas and so I was just kind of wondering you know how do you all as facilitators and as artists see yourselves kind of navigating those spaces because I know many of you all and I know you all have to navigate them yourselves you know you have you've had to find that line so that was kind of my question. I know sometimes in the art world even arts institutions will take advantage of artists and say can you give us artwork you'll get great exposure. So so we're so as art institutions and arts administrators we need to give people living wages and and honor their work and and not make them volunteer for things so that they they can support and give to their families so that it becomes not just the thing that they do at night on their kitchen table or on the weekends after they've worked all day you know all week long that's unacceptable for cultural and arts institutions to expect the art the artwork artist community to do things for free to to give in themselves for free that that doesn't pay the bills at all and I know that with San Antonio SA 2020s initiative the most recent data that came out is that we're actually losing arts and cultural jobs in San Antonio so it's a really serious issue and and I know that our artists and and folks like me would do it for free but that again my my passion does not pay my rent. An exposure doesn't pay it either. I know and and also to to add to something to to what I can't remember your name, Joey said. Also the relationship between an art activist and the art market yes and also understanding that I don't know in in the last two or three years I have been rambling about this topic and actually now I am in very much peace with the art market where before I was somewhat battling it because my objective wasn't necessarily to make money of art yet I need to pay rent and I don't want to work in a restaurant I want to work in my studio so understanding actually the importance of the inclusion of my artwork in the market actually as an activist role and if my work ends up in a public museum because that was museums are right that that then ends up being an object that is representing a generation of today so instead of battling the art market and oh no the commercialization of objects is wrong actually embrace it and understand that it's part of the it's part of the run there's something very powerful about a museum acquiring your work well but that's also a challenge like I remember one time this individual who had his first show at the Esperanza you know and just enjoyed that work you know was you know was coming up and it's like you know the museum wants my art piece and I'm going to give it to them it's like you're going to give it to them no they should pay you for it and it's like what's the value of that piece of ten thousand dollars it's like okay well make them pay you ten thousand dollars because if not if you have that ten thousand maybe you should give it to the organizations like Esperanza, San Antos, Guadalupe or whatever or the places that you started with if you have that but there's this big desire so what is it that we need to do to also support those artists I mean people come into my house and they say well you have a museum it's like that's me personally buying art and I have learned from artists that you know if it costs a thousand dollars I don't have to have a thousand dollars you know I can set it aside for a hundred dollars a month over 10 months and then at the end of 10 months they give me the piece and you know but I've been paying up and that's supporting so how do we take that becomes also how do we say sustain our organizations you become monthly donors because if we depend on those foundations they're not going to fund us so those are you know so part of the guerrilla warfare with our community is support those artists that we're not having to depend on these other it's you know we have a community that loves the work of consistency only support but we need to do you know I lots of young people have come into the Esperanza and it's like oh you know I remember um Dida Mia Garcia in 96 saw the first her first art show was Liliana Wilson fell in love and she learned about giving a hundred dollars a month she is now professor and continues to buy Liliana's work and Liliana knows that she comes to the Esperanza she'll have you know she'll come up with $10,000 strong at the end of that because she has built up a community in San Antonio and that's all Latinas and Latinos so we need to strengthen our community and teach them to buy the work of our own artists too and then in addition to that I think there is this this conversation of this ongoing kind of systemic assumption that that that has been put there intentionally that art is luxury right so so when we we talk to to our workers to our members spending money on art isn't necessarily the top the first thing on their mind right and I think that's how that's that's a part of the conversations that we need to have is sort of the value that artists and the value that that art piece holds and how we we portray it with with being proud and and and the dignity that's that's that comes with that with that piece and I think that's that's just something else that that I wanted to throw out there is sort of the the level of of conversation and the budgets that that our workers have having poverty wages having slave wages it's it's not the the first thing you know that I mentioned something around around water bills right and energy bills right and those continue to go up while our wages continue to stay the same right so I think that's that's also the conversation insane insane is how do we value and how do we create the space where where art and artists and their work has has intentional budgets and has has that that piece where then our workers feel that it's necessary and it's important part of their their work and their lives and their and their cultural representation to have you know earrings shout out to Sweetcraft you know have have these these different pieces in their life to support them and to strengthen and to root them to their community Hello everybody my name is Laura Valela I'm a filmmaker and a media artist and so I wanted to get back to the point of exclusion in terms of cam and the response from the city first of all in terms of cam just the selection of certain curators and their view of contemporary art already excludes a whole school of artists from sculptors to media artists to filmmakers to to yeah ceramicist expert ceramicist in the city correct and and then so the response we saw once again that they were excluding some of the experts at Latino art who are women like Graciela and Maria for example I'm not sure why they didn't ask them to come up and speak because that was one way that they could have kind of maybe at least given a lot of us that sort of hope that we have somebody speaking for us so I would like to challenge all my colleagues here to please start attending the cam meetings start attending all the city public art meeting uh pasta I've been trying to keep I'm going to start going to the pasta meetings because I did try one time a long time ago to apply for a project and we didn't even get included and the person that got it was from Florida and so once again now they're doing the Alamondorf lake that big public art project and it's a hundred and ninety thousand dollar bond and it is a person from the Midwest once again a man a white man and I'm sure they're very qualified but how do we get our artists to that point where they're considered uh qualified enough to get those grants if they're not even giving mid-sized or a quarter-sized and I also think that we have to work together to break down the systems of funding and who makes the decisions we have to keep an eye on this game because if we don't know how to play that game they're going to keep going so we're talking about breaking down institutions and systemic barriers for Latinos and people of color right well we better learn those systems very well and one of those ways is by going to these meetings by for example Roberto Trevino had had an absolute vacancy in his council and I talked to him and he's designating a filmmaker a man which would be great but I'm a filmmaker and I happen to know there's no funding for media arts in the TCCD funding the film commission has one grant for a feature filmmaker and then they have their neighborhood film projects so that's how filmmakers can get funded to the city if you can so I was thinking wow this is the most perfect time for you to have a latino artist on that panel and if we all write to him maybe you know what I mean I mean I don't know these are just things that I would like to challenge everybody and talk to them about because I honestly feel that if we're not there at every single meeting reminding them that we're here and hey by the way who's making the decision for that artist that there was three people eligible and who made that decision and by the way I have like three or four friends who tried to get on the pasta list because you have to be on a pre-approved list like pasta right you have to apply they couldn't even get through and they are the most qualified people in the world and so you know like if we're not watching this Ivy Taylor has five appointees from her side on the public art the public art board each council person has one person she has five and so in pasta she has about four people representing when I was there they don't all show up right there was only five people on the board so guess who's making those decisions it's you know I guess Ivy Taylor and the people that they're assigning assigning the people that maybe that that they want to get these contracts you know I mean I'm not saying it happens but of course they're they're appointing people on the board so we have to let them know we want to be on these boards we want to be on these private boards that you guys are hiring I they're doing it with the phone community as well it's mostly men it's just it keeps happening and I feel like I'm in between worlds I'm not quite a visual artist and I'm not a feature filmmaker I'm a documentary filmmaker and I'm a media artist and I don't fit in in any of the structures of the city I do fit in with private foundations so I mean I am an alumni here with Nalak and I have received funding from them which I'm very grateful for but there's we've got to talk to the city and say we're tired of you guys giving hundreds of thousands to the witty to the briscoe to the magnate to the symphony and not allowing small mid-sized organizations to take that leap and grow and we're tired of no individual friends or friends too particularly women I'm going to do a mapping project on all public art projects me and my friend Lauren Browning is a sculptor and she used to be a scientist we're going to map all the public art projects and we're going to see the gender if they're Latinos and are they from San Antonio because we need to know you know what I mean and when they did the mission the river north artwork they were all men and one woman and that woman had been dead for like a hundred years or something like that you know and then they went south and it wasn't any better we did one where we mapped all the the the the public sculptures of people and 95 percent are men and five percent are women and their own mothers so this is just the people so not to mention the actual public art that's here at the city well I think I have more comments than questions but I really want to speak because I'm an independent choreographer I'm Fabiola Torralma I am based here out of San Antonio and I went from being or identifying solely as an activist a cultural worker and and an organizer to now an artist and an activist that is really an organizer so I don't fit into any of the worlds that I'm becoming a part of which is the dance world modern and contemporary dance which is very elitist very white centered if you're a choreographer and you're a woman you're going to have a lot of battles just in that realm I think that what I want to say to everybody that I learned recently this year because I went on a spree going to different auditions trying to get myself into grad school not because I wanted to become part of that world but because I was seeing that really you need those papers in order to get any kind of credential because even though you've been doing the work you've been doing for 10 years you need those papers and I know about papers because I'm going to document it immigrant or was so I know the importance of that and one thing that I saw like as one of the only Latina that was at these auditions is that there are no Latinos in these spaces um and and it's important to keep that into perspective because I'm coming from an organizing background and like being very like why aren't you here why aren't you here why aren't you here and why aren't you doing the work but also being a working class person like the first generation on both sides of the border to like have gone to school graduated and all of that like have an accountability to my family that experiences financial crisis like every you know few months you know it has to deal with this reality of immigration that's very real to us still um and so I have to take care of this family too and I'm working on my feet like at a restaurant like because there isn't an industry in the city that supports dance um I feel like we should be more compassionate towards each other and because there are so few of us that are in these spaces or that are getting to become part of these spaces we're still learning how to navigate in the system we're still learning ourselves like what is it that I need to do in order for me to do my work like for instance I'm like oh you can't just dance and have fun and play you gotta become a choreographer if you want your stories to be there so nobody's gonna tell them for you that means I have to like learn how to funerate that means I have to like write grants that means I have to be a stage manager a production manager I have to do all of where all of these hats as an independent artist and I think that sometimes when you're working at an office or your work as an artist is being subsidized by your partner um you don't have to think of like having to carry all those and that same with that same regard with that same like level of of weightedness so there are so few of us in these spaces I feel like we need to listen to each other we need to support each other we need to use the power and the access that we do have because I do think that you've been if you've been able to get yourself into some chair or sit at a table or through some door you do have power and I hold myself accountable to that all the time with whatever I have and create capacity so that we get more people in there so I just wanted to say that I'm Andy Flores I'm a writer and a teacher and an artist from Canaantonio living in Austin and I first of all want to thank you guys for all being bad asses I'm blown away by all the work that you're doing but I also had a question about the future of space making and specifically space making for Latinx youth I heard recently and I think it was in a way I just saw that so much of the love that Latinx give out or work in is based out of or comes from this place of like anger of all the systems in place that are telling us we can't we don't have the time and the space to feel that love so I I know a lot of the stuff that was talked about on this stage today was how to build uh how to instead of focusing on I guess anger as anger instead building these communities and empowering these communities to just create for them and letting them know that creating for them is enough and spaces specifically for them and not for other people is enough and I'm personally in a state of artistic development where it's hard to choose how to express this anger that I feel every day just like as I'm letting that um in this current socioeconomic and cultural climate um so I was wondering how you thought teaching youth or I'm teaching you how to explore that anger and that love what that's going to look like in the future are we teaching people to you know throw the middle finger to everyone or are we solely focusing on building more spaces for us so um that's a great question um and I coming from a um experience working with kids in cps care for over 10 years um who have been through really difficult times and it's not their fault um and being angry and there's in their situation um offering them art is a very constructive way classes is a very constructive way to take that anger and and injustice that they've they've um endured um instead of hurting themselves negatively or um doing something negative to others or to um you know a life of crime because of of their situation we're offering them ways to express themselves in positive ways and a lot of young people don't know those tools exist and the only way they know are to act out anger and um self-hurt so um what spare parts is um which i'm very proud of is that we go in to these communities this one specific community for example and teach them ways to utilize materials around them um to learn how to dance to learn how to write and with those tools they're able to be productive and instead of being again harmful against themselves or others they are using art as a tool to grow um to learn about themselves and to make their community a better a better place i definitely have a lot of anger in me uh but you know our work that we do it i i grew up with around military contamination that was one of my main projects at southwest workers union because i i grew up on the south side um between two military bases uh so i would go to these air force meetings these uh EPA meetings um and i'd leave crying right as a as a 19-year-old girl um keep owning you know woman in the in in the room um who didn't have a degree um there was there was this immense sense of like you know your experience as a residence of this community is not valued right and i i think out of a lot of that anger came um this realization that i i also have a lot of love a lot of love for the people around me a lot of love for my community and this this immense passion to to change what i was right and sort of the way the way we see each other and the way we work with each other and well we could well we could stand in that in that place of anger there is also this reality that that there's a place of love too right a love for yourself a love for your panza for your brown eyes for your brown hair um and sort of finding that that space and that place to to to build that is is extremely important um and i think for me growing up was was um i was scheduled to go into the air force actually um because my teachers told me that was the only way i would be successful and get out of the the the quote ghetto and which was the south side that i love um and part of that that need was to create the space for young people to feel welcome to feel okay and to feel loved right for whoever they were and whatever choice they they made right but also but also given that that guidance is that we need guidance of our elders we need guidance of our community we need guidance from the people around us to know that that are the way that that that we're going the the actions that we do are actually we're accountable to our community right so i don't i i don't make these decisions based off of you know diana Lopez from the south side right these these the decisions and these conversations and and and our work and our goals and our um and sort of our vision come from our members come from our community and i think that's that's the important piece to to say is is how our work is influenced by by where we are where we've been and and where we're going so so i i definitely agree that that you know as a as a young person growing up in san antonio there there needs to be more social justice spaces um where we talk about these these these different issues outside of of a system and of uh particularly for for a young person you know their their world we we're wrongs around school right that's where they spend the majority of their time right but to be able to say um you know this is another space where you could hang out and talk and talk about these issues um in a space that's that's supportive of young people um but that's grounded in in community that's grounded in elders and identity and and roots and and history is is extremely important so i definitely agree that that there needs to be more spaces there needs to be more more places where where we're we're showing love where we're we're talking about social justice in a way that's that's that builds towards towards creating power because that's what we're talking about right each each one of us in this room has power right and it's and it's dignity and it's justice and it's the liberation where we see this this power come and it's through arts that that and through expression and through you know whatever ways and means that that we are that that's how we show it right and that's how we show love um or anger which is also an expression yeah just remember especially if you're talking about young people there has never been so much violence in our world as there is right now and it's gonna be more so so in my short life i see it more and more and again so again how do we create how do we shift that culture of violence into that culture of love and compassion and again what moving away from individualism and greed and hate and war to one of love and compassion right so we need to create we need to create so let us create those images let us let us remember let's work at intergenerationally like our you know and learn from the elders again my mom always said hacen bien y no te fijes en quien right she learned it from her mother and her you know so it's just just do for community do for one another um and and and those ideas and concepts of being bien educado i mean we put and i learned this in a conference where tomas iberra frausto was talking and he said you know in our community in our culture there's instruction and then there's being bien educado and what you learn at home is being bien educado you know con permiso you know things that some people might say are derogatory as well but it was like you respect the elder you respect the young people you know you treat each other respectfully and you do good right and that's being bien educado and instruction is like how much you get you know phd but it was more respected to be bien educado than the phd and now we have a lot of educated people a lot of it people who are in positions of power who run our city and our county and our world and they're not thinking about any of us they have forgotten where they come from and what they're supposed to do so let us continue to not you know to share those values change shift that culture um and somebody grace lee boggs was just died at last year at the age of 100 and she talks about building communities of compassion and she talks about what martin luther king talked about the beloved communities so let us create those communities and again they don't have to be 501 seat threes we just we don't have to have walls you know you know just take up the space those spaces are ours and the city and the governments continue to keep us from them let's take just take us to continue to think about as the weekend progresses um what does brother west say uh love no justice is what love looks like in the social realm and so i think that there's a lot to be said um that during a discussion about art and social activism that compassion love uh we're an integral part of that seamless conversation and yeah art and social activism they don't have to be mutually exclusive um so one of the things i learned from this panel is um always thinking about this question is how do you move in subversive ways when you're in a position of power and we all have some sort of power right and so i think you do it with intention you intervene with difference you embrace difference i mean there's nothing in our bodies that is the same um and it makes this like instrument of magic work tirelessly sometimes so if we can just think about that as we move forward please take a moment to meet somebody different introduce yourself introduce your work um ask questions uh we get to do that by breaking bread together just momentarily um it should be ready to go are we yes and so please um you know you can form a line and get something delicious to eat and then come right back in here has some we've got a wonderful lineup with conjunto heritage