Education Mexico Project #7735

Help Mexican Youths Fight Violence Through Art

by Arquetopia A.C.

Project Report | Jan 17, 2012
The Fight Against Violence Continues...

By Francisco Guevara | Executive Director

Public Art Team working on the design

The fight against violence continues: art connects Puebla and Oaxaca.

Puebla and Oaxaca are two of the poorest states in the country with the highest immigration rates and youth high school dropouts. Thus, Arquetopia decided to bring the best of its programs to Oaxaca and invest in old lasting tradition, art and youth. “Both states will benefit with this initiative and will create more opportunities for artists and youth, furthering the discussion about social issues in a public spectrum,” Francisco Guevara, Executive Director of Arquetopia, expressed.

Without a doubt, the fall of 2011 was a busy season and while our public art team continued to work on the design for San Agustin Calvario, Arquetopia’s staff worked intensively to make this initiative a reality. The big date was December 10, and the celebration of Arquetopia’s second anniversary brought exciting news to everyone: the new Arquetopia Oaxaca had also opened it doors. With a clear commitment to keep fighting violence in Mexico through art and continue to create opportunities for underrepresented communities, the new cultural center was inaugurated with music and tamales, Oaxacan style.

Together, through Arquetopia and Arquetopia Oaxaca, we will be able to establish a permanent circuit to promote development through art. We will bring international artists to participate in the discussion, keep investing in the future generations, promote tourism, create new jobs, and foremost, to present a more nuanced perception of Mexico and fight the image of violence, danger and blood.

Arquetopia has great plans for 2012 and we will keep you posted on future projects. Thanks again for all your support, and we look forward to creating more art and transforming our community!

Dandelion sketch, murals final draft

Arquetopia's new art center in Oaxaca

General view of the patio at Arquetopia Oaxaca

2o Anniversary, celebrating Oaxaca style!

Official opening ceremony of Arquetopia Oaxaca

Dedication speech by the Executive Director

Celebrating our grand opening

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Oct 5, 2011
First Sprouts of Change Grow in San Agustin!

By Francisco Guevara | Executive Director

Young artists working in the studio

The youngest artists of the community provoke reflection on the opposition of identity and immigration in San Agustin Calvario.

During the summer, members of San Agustin Calvario’s families living in the United States are present in the memory of the community upon the town celebration of San Augustin. This year, the youngest members of the community became the center of attention by remembering the absent relatives and question the community with art about identity and how immigration affects them.

A group of 40 children artists from Mariano Abasolo Elementary School along with the guest Echo Artist worked in a summer workshop creating art and discussing who they are and how immigration is part of their lives. The goal of the workshop was to develop iconography and narrative for the permanent mural addressing immigration and identity that in the following weeks will be painted in San Agustin Calvario.

Through different games, exercises and discussions, the children learned about environmental issues and drew their reality that later will materialize in mandalas (geometric figures that represent the universe) that speak about the eternal movement that characterizes their community. With self-portraits, representations of the nature, and scale models of their town, they generated iconography and wrote stories that became the essence of the exciting public art project.

A group of eight young high school student muralists, along with the children, will give voice to the community and paint in the following months a mural that will stimulate participation and serve as a reference at the same time that it questions the community about the meaning of immigration in San Agustin Calvario.

Gathering materials

Artists posing

Teamwork

Learning about who we are

I'm proud of my mandalas

This is our town

Thank you, Arquetopia & GlobalGiving!

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Jul 6, 2011
Students and Eco-Artist Will Plant Seed of Change

By Francisco Guevara | Project Leader

Clinic in San Agustin Calvario

Local clinic near Popocateptl will be the new home of Yolanda Gutierrez's latest eco-art project in collaboration with young artists from San Agustin Calvario.

San Agustin, located in Cholula, Puebla, is a small community of 2,634 whose families are mainly supported by the growing of flowers and seeds. With a very deep sense of tradition, San Agustin struggles with few or no opportunities for their young people. Like many other towns in Mexico, it has a high emigration rate, teenage pregnancy and alcoholism common among its young students, and a poverty index that rises every year.

This year, in an effort to contribute to change, reduce violence and transform this community, Arquetopia chose to collaborate with international environmental artist Yolanda Gutierrez and a group of twenty young artists from The Frida Kahlo High School to create a public art piece. The project, addressing emigration as a theme and using natural materials, will draw attention to the local clinic frequently visited by the people of San Agustin, asking them questions about the identity, sustainability and future of their own community. In the process the group of young artists will learn about the environment, the power of art, and the potential each one of them has to actively participate and transform their community.

Yolanda Gutiérrez's work is inspired by a combination of concepts of ancient philosophies such as the Nahuatl, Taoist, Buddhist and Judeo-Christian. The use of natural elements is a constant in her artwork, reflecting her affinity with cosmologies that question our current relationship with the surrounding environment and the ethics behind the use of natural resources in a globalized world. In this sense, she uses poetic images as a resource to raise questions, materialized in art pieces with the intention to approach the viewer with the possibility of a more balanced and close relationship between man-nature-spirituality.

Virgin Drops by Yolanda Gutierrez. 1994

Morning Glory by Yolanda Gutierrez, 2005.

Nos susurra el rio y silva la serpiente, 1999

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