Tortilla Social mini documentary

Tortilla Social was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Creative City Program, with funding from The Barr Foundation and with additional support from the Boston Foundation. Tortilla Social has also partnered with the Urbano Project and Hyde Square Task Force as a community partners on this project.

Tortilla Social fue posible gracias al financiamiento del Programa de “Creative City” de “New England Foundation for the Arts,” con fondos de la Fundación The Barr y con el apoyo adicional de la Fundación de Boston. Tortilla Social también se ha asociado con “Urbano Project” y “Hyde Square Task Force” como socios comunitario en este proyecto.

Credits
Video Produced by Salvador Jiménez-Flores
Camera by Darren Cole & Faizal Westcott
Edited by Darren Cole & Faizal Westcott
Additional footage by Martha P. Osornio- Ruiz

Featuring Music
Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquestra - Chicago - www.dossantoschi.com

Interviewees
Maria Christina Blanco
Patricia Garcia
Massiel Torres
Jonah Muniz
Sebastian Zapata 

Special Thanks
Stella Aguirre-McGregor
Sarah Brugge
Isabel Catalina Hibbard
Amanda Cortes
Denise Delgado
April Franklin
Eric J. Garcia
Jim Grace
Matt Jeff
Eucaris Jiménez
Jose Alfredo Jiménez
Safiyyah Johnson
Deidra Montgomery
Quyen Nguyen
Martha P. Osornio- Ruiz
Anthony Peña
Waldewar Rivera
Gleidymar Rivera
Susan Richards Hallstein    
Eva Rosenberg
José Sanchez
Katerin Sarai Rodriguez
Ricardo Serment
Kim Szeto
Amber Stout
Kenneth Tangvik

New England Foundation for the Arts Staff
Urbano Project Staff
Hyde Square Task Force Staff
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Instituto Gráfico de Chicago
Hands House Project
The Free School of Writing
Speedball Art Products

Tortilla Social Documentary Premiere

Join us for the premiere of the Tortilla Social, a film documenting Urbano Artist in Residence, Salvador Jiménez-Flores' Tortilla Social project, as we close the Encounters exhibition at Urbano! Prints made by Salvador Jiménez-Flores will be for sale. Tortilla Social was shot by Darren A. Cole and Faizal Westcott and edited by Darren A. Cole and ‪Faizal Westcott‬.
Popcorn will be provided! This is event is free, open to the public and family-friendly!

Qué onda banda! / Hello All!

2017 was a good year! I have a lot to share and to be thankful for... so I decided to make a quarterly newsletter! Please sign up if you want to receive updates of my projects. As always, thank you for your ongoing support. 
 

HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR!

I am proud and humble to be a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grants. The Painters and Sculptors Grant through the Joan Mitchell Foundation provides me with the opportunity to further my commitment to creating art for social justice by exploring an exciting new genre of art I call “Rascuache-Futurism." This grant will provide a tremendous amount of exposure in my artistic trajectory and provide the crucial financial support needed to foster my research, community-based work, and technology needs. 

Read more….

EXHIBITIONS

Current

Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly Curated by Risa Puleo, 2017 Bemis Center Curator-in-Residence.
December 7, 2017–February 24, 2018
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
Omaha, NE
Read more…

Past

ArtPrize Nine: Cultivate
September 12—December 10, 2017
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts
Grand Rapids, MI
Read more…

Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey
March 24—August 13, 2017
National Museum of Mexican Art
Chicago, IL
Read more...

PROJECTS

Current

Tortilla Social
Tortilla Social is an participatory project that transforms public spaces through the use of printmaking as a tool for self-expression, advocacy, art education, and food as a uniter of community. Tortilla Social was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Creative City Program, with funding from The Barr Foundation and with additional support from the Boston Foundation. Tortilla Social has also partnered with the Urbano Projectand Hyde Square Task Force as community partners on this project.

View the Tortilla Social Trailer here.
View a video of a Tortilla Social event here.

This will be an ongoing project throughout 2018— stay tuned for future events on my website.

ART RESIDENCIES
Completed

Artist-In-Residence at the Harvard Ceramics Program
It was a bitter sweet moment when I completed my second year as Artist-In-Residence at the Harvard Ceramics Program, Office of the Arts at Harvard University. I spent two formative years in this place and learned so much from everyone who is involved in the studio. I'm very grateful for this opportunity and most importantly I'm very blessed for all the great friendships, relationships and opportunities that have come out of this residency. 

City of Boston Artist-In-Residence Program
Resilient Current is a printmaking installation that embraces the past and present immigrant communities that have transformed Chinatown. This project was made possible through the Boston Art Commission at City of Boston, Boston Artist in Residence Program. View the Resilient Current Video here.

Special Thanks: Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Julie Burros, Karin Goodfellow, Cynthia Soo Hoo, Helen Wong, Giles Li, Cynthia Woo, Francisco Ormaza, Christian Guerra, Sharon Amuguni, Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture Staff, Josiah Quincy Elementary Staff and 2017 Boston AIR 2.0 Artists Cohort.

Sponsors: Boston AIR Program, Boston Centers for Youth & Families Quincy Community Center, The Josiah Quincy School, Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, Speedball Art Products.

A big shout out to Co-Producer Rene Dongo who found a way to make this video work.

PRESS

#TAKEACTION: NO MOTHERLAND (Take Magazine)
Read more...

HUBweek Change Maker: Salvador Jimenez-Flores
Read more...

The Ticket: What’s happening in the arts world
Read more...

Joan Mitchell Foundation Awards $625,000 in Grants to Artists
Read more...

Sculptures by Salvador Jiménez-Flores Explore Identity, Colonialism
Read more...

National Museum of Mexican Art celebrates its 30th with a protest party 
Read more..

Thirty Chicago-Area Artists Celebrate Thirty Years of Mexican Art Without Borders
Read more…

‘Resilient Current’ Josiah Quincy Elementary students make art and build community
Read more...

#TAKEACTION: NO MOTHERLAND 

 JANUARY 23, 2018   ROWEN GRAY  MASSACHUSETTS

Raised in Mexico, Boston artist Salvador Jiménez-Flores explores migration, colonialism, and living between two worlds.

Interdisciplinary artist Salvador Jiménez-Flores is a wanderer caught between two worlds. Raised in a rural town in Jalisco, Mexico, and later immigrating to the United States, Jiménez-Flores makes art that pulls at the consciousness of migration, colonialism, and notions of “the other.” “I have learned to adapt and live in these two worlds,” he says, “but adapting involves expanding and losing part of who I am. I will never be fully ‘American,’ and I am not entirely Mexican anymore. I am too pocho to my paisanos; like a foreigner, I do not have a motherland.”

You note that by being bicultural and bilingual, you live concurrently in two different worlds, and are a foreigner in both. How do these worlds intersect, and in what ways do you feel the divide?

There is a popular phrase in Spanish: “¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos!” This phrase refers to the curse of Mexico for its geographic proximity to the United States. The United States and the media have created the perception that anything south of the U.S. border is substandard, or what some people call “America’s backyard,” referring to traditional areas of dominance in Latin America. These notions have inflicted generational traumas upon Latinos, and we often end up believing these impressions, feeling inferior to U.S. citizens. Many U.S. citizens, or “Americans,” also believe that they are superior to Latinos and other minority groups. As a new immigrant, I experienced the feelings of second-class citizenship and accepted a position of inferiority. It was through education and art that I realized that these are socially constructed impressions, which I have overcome.

By moving between rasquache art and high art, what narratives do you feel you are able to tell in one form or another? 

Rasquache in Spanish means “leftover” or “of no value.” Rasquachismo, or rasquache art, describes an attitude or lifestyle of the underdog that uses assemblage or found object techniques in sculpture. As an artist, I feel that I am constantly improvising and problem solving. As a consequence, I am interested in the rasquache aesthetics of working with what is around and to what kind of facilities or space I have access to make art. High art, on the other hand, is more about the conventional way we validate art through the context of the white cube. By going between these two aesthetics, I hope my work is more relatable to museums and collectors,
as well as the immigrant farmer who can relate to my stories. In my view, neither is less or more.

Tell us about your development of rasquache-futuristic aesthetics in your work.

Through mainstream media and in most sci-fi content, the future is generally imagined as white. People of color have been erased from the future altogether. My latest research is about exploring and developing a rasquache-futuristic aesthetic in my artwork through which I could articulate pre-Columbian, colonial, and postcolonial histories. This would allow me to imagine and create a future in which the protagonist looks like me and understands me, and others can relate as well. I want to take risks and work with new media that will foster my community-based work, and make rasquache-futurism a reality. The act of resistance starts when we fight against those who try to stop us from being what we can become. Through art, I seek to resist the labels placed on me and other people of color by reimagining what an alternative future could look like.

As artist-in-residence for the city of Boston, have you experienced any key moments that have shaped your work? What have your goals been as an artist and a teacher? 

My art practice is driven by community engagement, social justice, and accessibility in the arts. I believe strongly in the value of creativity and how it improves our life experiences. It is my personal goal to empower and raise questions through art to cultivate conversations about the issues that affect our communities. The Boston AIR has been a great reminder of the importance of working with youth, playing the role of an educator, and bringing creativity and art to where it’s needed.

This residency has been a great opportunity for my artistic growth. I am taking risks and trying new ideas; most importantly, this has been a win-win situation for everyone in the Boston Centers for Youth & Families organization, Josiah Quincy School, and me. Coming into this residency, I knew that key characteristics to being successful in this project were patience and flexibility. The first step was to learn more about the community and see what is already available there, ask questions about what is needed, and then try to use art as a connector to create awareness and develop actions.

SALVADOR JIMÉNEZ-FLORES–ARTIST
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
WEBSITE

TOP IMAGE: SALVADOR JIMÉNEZ-FLORES, THE RESISTANCE OF THE HYBRID CACTI, DETAIL, 2017, TERRA COTTA. PHOTO BY SALVADOR JIMÉNEZ-FLORES

Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly

Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez
Cornucopia, 2016
India Ink on Tyvek
108 x 225 inches
Courtesy the artist

December 7, 2017–February 24, 2018

Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly takes the migration path of the Monarch butterfly, as a geographic range and a metaphor. The butterfly crosses the border of the United States at its junctions with Canada at the north and Mexico in the south along the entire length of both of these conceptual divides. Bypassing the hotter, desert regions of the country, Monarchs flock along its western and eastern coastal edges, but the busiest path of the orange-and-black butterfly is through the center of the United States. The Monarch travels through Midwestern states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois, across the Great Plains of Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, onwards through the Texas Hill Country all the way to the state of Michoacan in Mexico. The path of the butterfly also connects the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline where it crosses the Missouri River at the border of the Standing Rock nation to the U.S.-Mexico border, but the butterfly itself is indifferent to these artificial borders and conceptual divisions.

The exhibition Monarchs sees the defense of Standing Rock and the threat to build a border wall as continuous issues that pose challenges to people native to the Americas who have been separated by conceptual categories of indigenous, immigrant, and assimilated. Like the butterfly, which takes four generations to make the complete migratory path navigating its way through the center of the United States by drawing from inherited knowledge, these artists also pull from ancestral and cultural memory to reveal the deep conceptual legacies underpinning abstraction, reorient historical and art historical narratives, and explore centuries-old trade routes that moved aesthetics in addition to goods. Monarchs considers how objects, still and moving images, sound, and performances made by artists living in the path of the butterfly reveal their identities through form, process, and materiality rather than through content. To create the exhibition, Bemis Curator-in-Residence Risa Puleo looked to the butterfly for inspiration for the exhibition’s primary themes:

Migrations: The length of the Monarch's migratory path is over 3,000 miles long, and unlike any other butterfly, the Monarch makes this path twice. The butterflies cross two international borders and dozens of states. Rodrigo Valenzuela explores the landscape of migration along the U.S.-Mexico border while Sky Hopinka, Francisco Souto, and Wendy Red Star employ road trips as their means of moving across the United States. Other types of movement including immigration to displacement, itinerancy, nomadism, and also the condition of being immobilized are explored by William Cordova, Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez, Marty Two Bulls Jr., and Cannupa Hanska Luger. Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez and Harold Mendez examine how objects were moved across centuries-old trade routes, bringing aesthetics and styles with them across vast expanses of space.

Inheritance: No one butterfly completes the trek from the U.S.-Canada border across the U.S. to the butterfly forests of Michoacán, where individual butterflies often return to the same Oyamel Fir tree as their ancestors. They do so by drawing from knowledge inherited from butterflies who forged the path before them. Artists in Monarchs also pull from ancestral and cultural memory speaking to an inherited means of production and genealogy of form. Truman Lowe transforms the basket weaving techniques taught to him by his parents while Margarita Cabrera learned the craft of copper hammering of Santa Clara del Cobre, a town in Michoacán. Ronny Quevedo, Rafa Esparza, and Carlos Rosales-Silva incorporate building materials such as drywall, adobe, and plaster respectively into their paintings as an homage to constructing buildings and working-class labor.

Transformation: Over the course of its life, the Monarch butterfly takes on radically different forms, transforming from egg to caterpillar, chrysalis, and, finally, butterfly. Artists like Jeffery Gibson, Mary Valverde, Donna Huanca, and Ivan Lozano explore how costume and textiles join forces with performance to form the basis of sacred ritual and ceremony that provide passageways to the spiritual.

Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly is curated by Risa Puleo, 2017 Bemis Center Curator-in-Residence.

The Curator-in-Residence program's inaugural year is made possible by Carol Gendler and the Mammel Foundation. 

Jeffrey Gibson
All You Took I Gladly Gave, 2013
Found Tipi Poles, Buffalo Hide, Rawhide Lacing, Artificial Sinew, Wool Army Blanket, Acrylic Paint, Glass Beads, Quartz Crystals, Plastic, Sterling Silver
10 x 2 x 19 feet; Travois: Four 24 foot long tipi poles with 2.5–3-inch diameters; Buffalo Hide Trunk: 27 x 40 x 23 inches
Courtesy the artist

Salvador Jiménez-Flores
Nopales hibridos: An Imaginary World of a Rascuache-Futurism, 2017
Terra-cotta, porcelain, underglazes, gold luster, terra-cotta slip
96 x 96 x 96 inches
Courtesy the artist

Exhibiting Artists

Gina Adams
Carmen Argote
Natalie Ball
Margarita Cabrera
Juan William Chávez
Maria Chavez
William Cordova
Rafa Esparza
Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez
Guillermo Galindo
Jeffrey Gibson
Sky Hopinka
Donna Huanca
Truman Lowe
Ivan LOZANO
Cannupa Hanska Luger
Salvador Jiménez-Flores
Merritt Johnson
Rodolfo Marron III
Harold Mendez
Mark Menjivar
Ronny Quevedo
Wendy Red Star
Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez
Josh Rios & Anthony Romero
Guadalupe Rosales
Carlos Rosales-Silva
Sarah Rowe
Edra Soto
Francisco Souto
Marty Two Bulls Jr.
Rodrigo Valenzuela
Mary Valverde
Dyani White Hawk
Nathan Young
Sarah Zapata

Sculptures by Salvador Jiménez-Flores Explore Identity, Colonialism

by Andy SmithPosted on November 29, 2017

Mexico-born artist Salvador Jiménez-Flores uses several approaches to delve into identity and the convergence of cultures. A recent project in particular, titled “The Resistance of the Hybrid Cacti,” uses ceramics to look at these concepts and more. The artist says that “through art, I seek to resist the labels put upon me and other people of color by reimagining what an alternative future could look like.”

“‘The Resistance of the Hybrid Cacti’ is an exploration of the themes of colonialism, migration, identity and futurism,” a statement says. “The cacti is a resilient plant that can survive extreme weather conditions metaphorically I see this succulents as the hope for our future. My latest research is about developing a Rascuache-Futuristic aesthetics in my work.”

Past installations, sculptures, drawings, and other projects have reflected both the artist’s own experience and a broader look at our past and future. See more of his work below.

Source: http://hifructose.com/2017/11/29/sculptures-by-salvador-jimenez-flores-explore-identity-colonialism/

Announcing the 2017 Recipients of the Painters & Sculptors Grants

“I am honored and humbled to announce that I am a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grants! Thanks to whomever nominated me to apply!
With gratitude,”

— Salvador

The Joan Mitchell Foundation is pleased to announce the 2017 recipients of our annual Painters & Sculptors Grants. The 25 artists in this diverse group will each receive an unrestricted grant of $25,000, along with professional development and residency opportunities. The recipients are:

Leonardo Benzant Richmond Hill, NY

Drew Michael Anchorage, AK

Ruth Buentello San Antonio, TX

Arcmanoro Niles Brooklyn, NY

Colin Chase Ulster County, NY

Pat Phillips Pineville, LA

Pamela Council Bronx, NY

Lucy Puls Berkeley, CA

Solomon Enos Honolulu, HI

Analia Segal Brooklyn, NY

Jes Fan Brooklyn, NY

Rodrigo Valenzuela Culver City, CA

Ana Fernandez San Antonio, TX

Derrick Velasquez Denver, CO

jonathan paul gillette New York, NY

Michael Wang New York, NY

Salvador Jiménez-Flores Boston, MA

Dwayne Wilcox Rapid City, SD

Sonya Kelliher-Combs Anchorage, AK

Amanda Williams Chicago, IL

Riva Lehrer Chicago, IL

Antoine Williams Greensboro, NC

Joel Longnecker Red Hook, NY

Jenifer K Wofford San Francisco, CA

Michi Meko Atlanta, GA

The Painters & Sculptors Grants were established in 1993 in direct response to artist Joan Mitchell's instructions that a portion of her estate be used to "aid and assist individual painters and sculptors." This year's group of recipients represent a wide range of artistic practices and demographics. The artists range in age from 27 to 62, hail from 12 states in all regions of the U.S., including two artists from Alaska and one from Hawaii, and eighty percent identify as nonwhite. Employing a broad array of materials and processes, their work explores some of the most pressing issues of our time, including the immigrant experience, transgender rights, the housing crisis, racial and economic inequality, global warming, and Confederate monuments. The recipients join more than 500 contemporary artists who have received Painters & Sculptors Grants over the last 24 years, including many luminaries supported early in their careers. 

"In a time when artists' voices are so crucial for the health of our society, but unrestricted grant funding is so scarce, the Foundation's Painters & Sculptors Grants provide essential resources to a wide spectrum of today's working artists," said Christa Blatchford, Chief Executive Officer of the Joan Mitchell Foundation. "Our vision, rooted in Joan Mitchell's generous embrace of other artists, is to provide the necessary supports for artists to continue to innovate in their practices and create ambitious new work that inspires, engages, and fosters dialogue, as an important element of community-building. We look forward to continuing our relationships with the exceptional artists who are receiving grants this year."

Selection Process
The recipients of the Painters & Sculptors Grants are selected through a nomination and jury process. Nominators from across the country are asked to recommend artists--at any stage in their career--who they believe deserve greater recognition for their creative achievements, and whose practices would significantly benefit from the grant. In an anonymous, multi-phase process, a jury panel then selects the 25 awardees. Nominators and jurors include prominent visual artists, curators, and art educators who are dedicated to supporting artists, and the list of participating nominators and jurors varies from year to year. As with the grantees, participation as a nominator, juror, or grant recipient is also open to artists or colleagues who have not pursued a traditional BFA and/or MFA education as part of their career path. 

"Ensuring access and equity is an important part of our process and our desired outcomes," said Travis Laughlin, Senior Director of Programs at the Joan Mitchell Foundation. "Over the last three years, we have continued to broaden our approach, bringing in nominators and jurors with geographic, ethnic, and experiential diversity, in order to ensure that the artists nominated for the Painters & Sculptors Grants are reflective of varying backgrounds and approaches to their work. We can see the success of this process in the current group of recipients."

The Foundation's Painters & Sculptors Grants are unrestricted in order to offer artists the most flexible form of support. As part of their applications, grantee artists note how they plan to use these funds, with needs typically falling into four categories: acquiring the materials or equipment necessary for their art-making; securing better or larger spaces to work or live; for research, travel, and experimentation with their practice, in order to develop more ambitious work; and to find new ways to engage with their communities. 

In addition to the $25,000 award, the Foundation connects its grant recipients to a national network of arts professionals through free professional development consultations, which may come in the form of career and financial management advice or answers to legal questions. Grantees also become eligible to apply for residencies at the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, which opened in 2010 to provide both national and local artists with additional space and support to develop their practices.

Download the full press release

Read more about the artists on our website

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ABOUT THE JOAN MITCHELL FOUNDATION
The Joan Mitchell Foundation increases recognition of the work and life of pioneering abstract painter Joan Mitchell. Grounded in Mitchell's desire to support the aspirations of visual artists, the Foundation engages individual artists through grant-making, programming, and collaborations.

In addition to the promotion and preservation of Joan Mitchell's legacy, the Foundation's activities are currently focused on three areas: grants; artist legacy support; and artist residencies. The Foundation's grant programs include the Painters & Sculptors Grants, Emerging Artist Grants, and Emergency Grants, which provide support to artists whose work has been affected by natural or man-made disasters. The Foundation's Creating a Living Legacy (CALL) initiative provides support to older artists in the areas of studio organization, archiving, and inventory management, in order to help with the creation of a comprehensive and usable documentation of their artworks and careers. The New Orleans-based Joan Mitchell Center offers artist residencies to national and local artists, and also offers public programs such as artist talks and open studio events. Together, all of these programs fulfill Joan Mitchell's goal of creating a foundation that actively supports the needs of working artists, while amplifying the essential contributions artists make to the culturally diverse world in which we live. To learn more, visit joanmitchellfoundation.org.

Tortilla Social at Urbano Project

Tortilla Social Event at Urbano Project

Join us for the final exhibition of Tortilla Social at Urbano for a screening the Tortilla Social documentary and an exhbition of the prints created during the workshops across Boston! 

Tortilla Social is an interactive printmaking and food workshop using a multi-functional tortilla press designed and led by Urbano artist in residence Salvador Jiménez-Flores. Participants of all ages have the opportunity to use the tortilla press to make their own art print and to eat freshly made tortillas.

Tortilla Social was made possible with funding by the New England Foundation for the Arts' Creative City Program, with funding from The Barr Foundation and with additional support from the Boston Foundation. Tortilla Social has also partnered with the Urbano Project and Hyde Square Task Force as community partners on this project.

This event is free and open to the public. 

Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/events/148397549242530/

Learn more about Tortilla Social here:
http://www.salvadorjimenezflores.com/tortillasocialevents/

Support Urbano's next 8 years of art for social change. Your generous gifts make this work possible. http://urbanoproject.org/get-involved/

Tortilla Social @ HubWeek

Always wanted to learn how to print? Tortilla Social is an artist-driven project that transforms public spaces through the use of printmaking as a tool for self-expression, advocacy, and art education, and it is open to visitors of all skill levels. The centerpiece of the project is a small, mobile printing press that is reminiscent of a tortilla press. Led by artist Salvador Jiménez-Flores in partnership with the Urbano Project, Tortilla Social utilizes conventional and unconventional spaces for art and food throughout several Boston neighborhoods for a series of pop-up, interactive printmaking and food workshops. Jiménez-Flores, originally from Mexico but now based in Boston, sees his bicultural and bilingual identity as an opportunity to inhabit two different worlds. The challenge of navigating between these two sides of himself is often the subject of his work, which he uses to document his journey of adapting to life in the U.S.

Jiménez-Flores will be activating the press on Saturday, October 14 from 12pm-3pm and 6pm-9pm.

https://hubweek.org/exhibits/tortilla-social/

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

BOSTON
URBANO ENCOUNTERS: A Retrospective Exhibition
Thursday, September 21 | 6:30 to 9:00 pm.  
@Urbano Project, 29 Germania Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130  
Co-curated by Colombian-born curator/artist Julián Serna and Urbano's Founder and Artistic Director, Stella Aguirre McGregor, this exhibition features various socially-engaged projects that have taken place at Urbano, including artworks of Pablo Helguera, Pedro Reyes, Lina Maria Giraldo, Salvador Jimenez Flores, Nora Valdez, Darren A. Cole, among other artists. 

Resilient Current
September 9-October 21
Reception | September 22 | 4:30-7:00pm
Printmaking Workshop | October 21 | 3:00-4:30pm
99 Albany St., Boston 02111 | bcnc.net/pao | 617.635.5129
Boston Aritist-in-Resident Salvador Jiménez-Flores & Josiah Quincy Elementary School students

Resilient Current is a printmaking installation that embraces the past and present immigrant communities that have transformed Chinatown. I like to think of kindness and generosity as a characteristic of emphasis for this project and as a way to speak against hatred, misogyny, and xenophobia. Through this art project, we want to embrace the diverse groups that have been part of the Chinatown community and provide hope, inclusion, and a sense of belonging for all immigrants, and most importantly, emphasize that we are all free, capable, and equal.

GRAND RAPIDS
Cultivate
Tuesday, September 12, 2017 12:00pm
Sunday, December 10, 2017 5:30pm
Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts
2 Fulton West
Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Cultivate is a curated group show that uses food as a lens to examine cultural history, social equity, and the effects of globalization on communities. Food – how it is produced, the environmental conditions that make it sustainable, how it is consumed, the cultural practices related to it – has been the subject of art for centuries. From Northern Renaissance still life paintings, to Pop Art social metaphor, to contemporary relational aesthetics that spur social interaction, food remains an important subject of expression. The artists presented in Cultivate have chosen as their subjects elements that relate to all of these, while challenging viewers to consider our present relationship with what we consume as the fulcrum for our future relationships with one another, and with the environment.

CHICAGO
Ass Grass or Gas
September 9 - October 21st
Tiger Strike Astroid
319 N Albany

Sparked by an interest in vanning culture, curators Josue Pellot and  Robin Dluzen explore the aesthetics of the sub-culture with this exhibition that encompasses wider ideas about taste, the vernacular, and the psychedelic. In the gallery, Josue Pellot, Robin Dluzen, Margaret Crowley, Salvador Dominguez, Salvador Jimenez-Flores, Jourdon Gullett, Chantal Johnson and Omar Velazquez contribute works that reference customization, the vintage forms and patterns of a particular eraof American-made vans, and the free-wheeling spirit that comes with complete immersion into a world with an alternate set of norms, values and attitudes.

National Museum of Mexican Art celebrates its 30th with a protest party

By Lori Waxman

It's tempting to begin this review of "Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey," the National Museum of Mexican Art's 30th anniversary exhibition, with an update on the Trump administration's plans for building a border wall, decorating it with solar panels and sending a petroleum pipeline under it. Or with stats refuting the president's erroneous claim that Mexico is the second-deadliest country in the world. Or with stories about the families broken apart when immigrants in the country illegally have been deported to the south. But why ruin a good party?

NMMA first opened its doors in 1987, as the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, having been founded by a group of public school teachers and community activists to fill what they saw as a lack of Chicano representation in the city's educational institutions. Located in Pilsen, it remains the only accredited Latino museum in the country, even though people of Latin American descent constitute the second-largest ethnic group by population.

With facts and figures and tweets like these, the party cannot be just a celebration. Instead "Memoria Presente" is a protest-as-party. (Great rallies usually have something jubilant to them, just as magnificent fetes ought to be at least partly subversive.) Thirty of the most exciting artists of Mexican descent working in the Chicago area today have been invited, and they're as diverse a cohort as is the population served by the museum, ranging in age from 26 to 76; in birthplace from the state of Jalisco, in western central Mexico, to Moline, in northwestern Illinois; in media from woodblock prints to store-bought wigs. Some names are familiar — Alberto Aguilar, Maria Gaspar and Juan Angel Chavez have all been in prominent local shows in the past year — and others less so.

Much of what fills the exhibition, whose title translates as "Present Memory," looks festive at first glance. There are towering cakes, swirling ribbons, paper chains, golden cactuses and the possibility of dancing under a rising moon, but nothing is quite what it seems.

Yvette Mayorga's "Make America Sweet Again" uses piped frosting and construction materials to concoct an overwhelming diorama of border-related anxieties. Rodrigo Lara Zendejas's riff on the Voladores de Papantla, an ancient Mesoamerican ritual that involves four men flying downward on twisting ropes from a 90-foot-high pole, puts muted beribboned sculptures of immigrants into an endless, disorientating tailspin. Ivan Lozano strings up pretty translucent links of packing tape covered in transfer images sourced from internet coverage of brutal drug cartel executions. Salvador Jimenez-Flores molds a harsh futuristic landscape in which cactuses hybridize with humans to create a resilient mestizo race. Luis A. Sahagun's breathtaking "Lonely Moon Rides High" is really just a battered scrap of wood screwed into a silvery insulation panel.

The perils and aesthetics of urban life figure everywhere. The graffiti artist Miguel "Kane One" Aguilar sprays a drippy, hazy Xanadu on an indoor wall and also offers free running tours of public art in Pilsen, a neighborhood known for its murals (the next tour takes place at 10 a.m. July 29). Street artists need be fast on their feet, as must others: Errol Ortiz, a Chicago Imagist and one of the senior figures in the show, traces the deadly ubiquity of guns in "Serenely Absorbing Passionless Violence," a mesmerizing pattern painting in which weapons, skeleton parts and bullet-riddled bodies interweave. Nicole Marroquin prints hippie designs atop images of police confronting student protesters during the Harrison High School walkouts of 1968, when demands for bilingual and bicultural education met up with a zeitgeist of flower power and civil rights.

Lady Liberty, shorthand for all the freedoms and opportunities promised by the United States, may be the most recurrent motif in "Memoria Presente." I counted at least three appearances, six if each of the four composite statues of Eric Garcia's "Pillars of the Community" are added up individually. Though slip-cast from identical molds — the bottom third is the Aztec goddess Coatlicue, the middle is Venus de Milo, the top Liberty — each pillar is marked with slightly different percentages. To this brazen measuring of ethnic and cultural heritage, Sam Kirk adds a third element of identity: gender. Kirk's "Trans-ition" layers sheets of paper and glass one atop the other to draw a fluid portrait of a complex person who escapes simple classifications.

Harder to categorize are a scattering of elusive artworks that eschew overt interest in any of the above socio-political concerns. Dan Ramirez's "Altheia II-W," a meticulously painted diptych on birch panels, distills a search for truth in spare geometric forms. Georgina Valverde's towering "Temazcal," modeled on traditional sweat lodges, emerges not from adobe but the stuff of here and now: crochet panels, plastic bags, galvanized steel and lots of glue. Victoria Martinez's brown felt banner, screen-printed with brick and turquoise sketches, decorated with rhinestones and lime stitches and hung from a strawberry banner, could be the standard of a new generation, as hip as it is comfortable with itself.

Having the freedom to be mysterious and idiosyncratic — now there's something to celebrate.

"Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey" runs through Aug. 13 at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St., 312-738-1503, www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org.

Thirty Chicago-Area Artists Celebrate Thirty Years of Mexican Art Without BordersA Review of "Memoria Presente" at the National Museum of Mexican Art

“Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey,” the thirtieth-anniversary exhibition of the National Museum of Mexican Art, exemplifies its community-based mission. The selection of local artists emphasizes youth, education and immigrant backgrounds. Half were born in Mexico and all but a few have an MFA. Of the thirty artists, twenty-two were born after 1970, eleven were born after 1980. 

The family-centric show is fun as well as politically engaged. At the entrance, Jorge Lucero invites those who need documentation to rip blank pages out of books he has provided. At the other end of the exhibit, Rodrigo Lara Zendejas has hung four inverted human figures from a spinning ceiling fan, suggesting both the traditional Danza de los Voladores of Papantla as well as undocumented immigrants spinning in recent political winds. In the middle, Yvette Mayorga tries to ‘Make America Sweet Again” with a colorfully intense installation that suggests the hardships as well as the saccharine dreams of crossing the border. Within an opposing corner, Salvador Jiménez-Flores has installed a conglomeration of cactus leaves and human faces that play with the bizarre possibilities of genetic engineering. Between them strolls Juan Angel Chavez’s life size “Buffalo Sade” made of synthetic hair and foam. It is a cute and attractive fabric animal though the title and the banderillas suggest a darker message. The messages offered by many of the other pieces are much more simple and direct moral dualities. As asserted by the “stop all deportations” poster carried within a Rene Arceo linocut, immigration control is bad. As proclaimed by Chema Skandal!’s romantic image of two heroic males (Aztec warriors), and Sam Kirk’s romantic image of two iconic women (Frida Kahlo with Chavela Vargas), same-sex romance is good. As presented by Errol Ortiz’ memorial to Hadiya Pendleton, the fifteen-year-old honor student killed in 2013 after her final exams, shooting children is horrific.

The conceptual training of the younger artists as well as the emphasis on entertainment and simple messages has often made high visual quality unnecessary. But nonetheless there is usually a tangible sense of attention to material, especially by Luis Nuno who has woven silicone caulk into decorative patterns and given new, poetic life to discarded building materials. Miguel “Kane One” Aguilar has taken the art of graffiti to the heights of virtuosity. Dan Ramirez’s “Aletheia” is as attractively metaphysical as its name would suggest. Its craftsmanship is so refined, the piece seems to embody pure thought. On the opposite wall, Elsa Muñoz approaches a similar theme with “Plato’s Cave”—though it’s less about Greek philosophy and more about creating a quiet, cool space suitable for meditation. Marcos Raya offers biting moral outrage eclipsed by the complexity of his pictorial space. Going in the opposite direction, Errol Ortiz adds a moral dimension to the high voltage and well-crafted provocations of the Chicago Imagists. The Mexican tradition of printmaking is well represented by the floor to ceiling banners printed by Roberto Ferreyra. They are both beautiful and scary. Also ominous are Mario ‘Zore’ Gonzalez Jr.’s and Christopher Preissing’s mottled sheets of dark steel, hung from the ceiling and accompanied by a soundtrack of ambient sounds taken from abandoned buildings. Most ominous of all are Maria Gaspar’s manipulations of Google earth images of Cook County Jail. They are as spacious and confusing as Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione . 

Balancing social, political and aesthetic concerns, the museum has made a notable effort to cultivate emerging generations of local artists and introduce them to their community. It does seem that the very best pieces have been made by the oldest artists: Ramirez (b. 1941), Ortiz (b. 1941), Raya (b. 1948), Duarte (b. 1954), and Ferreyra (b.1957), but perhaps that’s how it should be. (Chris Miller)

Original source

Tortilla Social | Creative City Grantee

Creative City art projects extend into Boston neighborhoods featuring creative expression of many disciplines including theater, music, dance, visual art, spoken word, and more. Programs offer a variety of opportunities for community participation, including performances, workshops, receptions, and interactive storytelling.

Creative City was launched in 2015 by New England Foundation for the Arts with hopes to support individual artists to enliven neighborhoods and engage communities. The grant program has awarded $318,500 to 33 projects in four rounds of applications. In addition, Creative City has also awarded $20,000 to 20 community partners ($1,000/each) to support/collaborate with the individual artist project (more partner applications are in process now).  The deadline for the fifth invitation for individual artist applications will be in September 2017; the date will be announced in late spring. For grant eligibility and criteria, visit https://www.nefa.org/creative-city-grant. Creative City is made possible by the Barr Foundation with additional funding from the Boston Foundation.

“Artists who receive Creative City grants engage in important conversations in their communities around displacement, immigration, identity – timely issues that impact all of us,” said Cathy Edwards, NEFA executive director. “Supporting local artists’ visions is critical, and this does that through surprising ways and locations.”

“Creative City is about taking the life and stories of communities and, through the powerful synergy of artists and residents, examining and retelling those stories in fresh and provocative ways,” said San San Wong, Barr Foundation’s senior program officer for arts and creativity. “We continue to be excited to see the varied scope of these engagements in communities across Boston. It has been our privilege to partner with NEFA in supporting so many talented artists and see new stories of neighborhoods come alive through this program.” 

Learn about previous Creative City artist grantees and community partners.

Trump can’t stop the National Museum of Mexican Art →

With “Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey,” the institution proudly and vibrantly celebrates its 30th anniversary.

by Kerry Cardoza

April 05, 2017

Courtesy National Museum of Mexican ArtSalvador Jiménez-Flores, La Resistencia de los Nopales Híbridos (The Resistance of the Hybrid Cacti), 2017

 "Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey"

Through 8/13: Tue-Sun, 10 AM-5 PM
National Museum of Mexican Art
1852 W. 19th
312-738-1503
nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org
Free

Local artist Alberto Aguilar often uses cognates—or as he describes them, "words that can be read in English and in Spanish simultaneously"—in his work. He knew he wanted to incorporate them when the National Museum of Mexican Art asked him to participate in its 30th anniversary exhibition, "Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey." One of his contributions is the first work visitors encounter, a window sign that reads PORTAL in bright red letters above the entrance. It's a word that takes you places: into another dimension, another world, another time. With the White House planning to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and increasing raids in immigrant communities—one of which resulted in a federal agent shooting a man in Belmont Cragin last week—entering a space where those communities are celebrated can indeed feel like being transported to a different reality.

The National Museum of Mexican Art was founded by Carlos Tortolero and a group of educators in 1987. Originally called the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, the space expanded in 2001 and in 2006 adopted its current name. It's the only Latino museum accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Cesáreo Moreno, the director of visual arts and chief curator, says the mission of the institution has remained the same throughout its history: To display the beauty and depth of Mexican culture, to develop a Mexican art collection, and to cultivate Mexican artists.

"I think our mission is still strong, it still holds true," he says. But that doesn't mean he hasn't seen changes in the Latino art-world community since he started at the museum in 1995. He notes a big increase in female artists, and a greater diversity of content and material in artwork. In the 80s and 90s, he says, artists of Mexican descent had their ethnic identity in the forefront of their work. "Today's artists, I think, have a much more complex identity," Moreno says.

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For this exhibit, Moreno, who curated the show along with Dolores Mercado and Ricardo X. Serment, sought to include a wide range of artists—31, in fact, from Chicago and vicinity were invited to participate. "We want people to see and understand that there is a huge variety and diversity in the Mexican community," Moreno says. The works on display represent an array of mediums. There's graffiti, painting, video, and a kinetic sculpture, among other contributions. 

Some of the strongest pieces are mixed- media installations. In Suffocated From the Inside (Party Chain) v2, Ivan Lozano pays tribute to the murdered son of the poet Javier Sicilia. Lozano downloaded and printed images of drug-cartel murder victims from the Internet, transferred them onto packing tape, and then formed them into paper chains like the ones you find in an elementary school classroom. Installed in a corner, the chains are lit by a lightbulb underneath them; a photo of a sunset adorns the wall. Yvette Mayorga's Make America Sweet Again, a sugar-coated critique of the American dream, is inspired by her family's work in the confectionery industry: pink and blue faux frosting on the walls is shaped into cakes and American flags. 

Georgina Valverde addresses the history of the museum's location for her installation, Temazcal, named for a Mesoamerican steam bath traditionally used to "cleanse the body, heal the sick, or assist women in labor." She learned that Harrison Park, which borders the museum, originally housed a natatorium, or indoor swimming and wading pools. Space constraints led her to make a model of the bath, composed primarily of melted plastic bags covered with crocheted yarn. Valverde says the craft that went into making Temazcal was important, as her culture "still has a strong artisanal tradition."

"It also speaks about the labor that is here in this country that makes possible so many aspects of our lives," she says, "all from the contributions of immigrants."

In conjunction with "Memoria Presente," the NMMA is also running an extensive programming series for the local Mexican community. Events range from a street tour of public art to a presentation of 60 political cartoons in 60 minutes by artist Eric J. Garcia. Moreno notes that education and engagement have always been priorities for the NMMA. "That's how we start to change a society, through education," he says. "We firmly believe arts education can build bridges between communities." To that effect, the NMMA remains one of the few museums in the city that's always free. 

"In a time in the United States when being Mexican and being an immigrant has really been tarnished," Moreno says, "I think that we have an even stronger struggle ahead of us to provide an accurate understanding of what it means to be Mexican and what it means to come from an immigrant community. Now the museum more than ever needs to really stand up and kind of show the other side, the beauty of our culture and the strength of our community."

There's another piece by Aguilar above the exit of "Memoria Presente": Titled Éxito, it's a sign that reads TERMINAL made of painted butcher paper, black streamers, and black masking tape. Another cognate, but this one has darker connotations. Yet the word éxito suggests an alternate meaning, "more like celebration or wishing someone good luck," Aguilar says. "I like to do this thing where I just am factual, like I just state facts," he continues. "I hope sometimes that in doing that, that poetry sort of naturally emerges, rather than me forcing it." 

The same could be said of the NMMA. It could be more overtly political in the exhibitions it stages, but the museum doesn't force the issue. By representing a wide range of artists with a diversity of experiences, it lets a different story emerge, one that celebrates our differences instead of fearing them.  

Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey

Memoria Presente: An Artistic Journey

Opening reception Friday, March 24, 2017. 6pm – 8pm

Exhibition continues through August 13 in the Main Gallery

There is no better way to celebrate our 30th anniversary year than to present an exhibition of exceptional artists currently working in Chicago and vicinity. Since opening its doors in 1987, the Museum has showcased 220 exhibitions that exemplify a broad spectrum of artistic expressions from both sides of the Mexico-U.S. border. The contemporary artists now creating artwork across our Midwest city continue to accurately reflect the vibrance and diversity found within the Chicago-Mexican community. Their poetic and political expressions carry on an extensive history of contemplative work and civic dialog in North America. The Museum’s philosophy of a Mexican culture “sin fronteras” (without borders) promotes art as a bridge between communities, while art education expands minds and breaks down barriers, even as it preserves cultural heritage.

Artists:

Alberto Aguilar (b.1974)

Miguel ‘Kane One’ Aguilar (b.1976)

René Hugo Arceo (b.1959)

Juan Angel Chavez (b.1971)

Javier Chavira (b.1971)

Héctor Duarte (b.1952)

William Estrada (b.1977)

Roberto Ferreyra(b.1957)

Eric Garcia (b.1977)

Maria Gaspar (b.1980)

Sergio Gomez (b.1971)

Mario ‘Zore’ Gonzalez (b.1970)

Salvador Jiménez-Flores (b.1985)

Sam Kirk (b.1981)

Rodrigo Lara Zendejas (b.1981)

Ivan Lozano (b.1981)

Jorge Lucero (b.1976)

Nicole Marroquin (b.1970)

Victoria Martinez (b.1987)

Yvette Mayorga (b.1991)

Elsa Muñoz (b.1983)

Alfonso ‘Piloto’ Nieves (b.1975)

Errol Ortiz (b.1941)

Dan Ramirez (b.1941)

Marcos Raya (b.1948)

Luis Romero (b.1965)

Luis A. Sahagun (b.1982)

CHema Skandal (b.1980)

Georgina Valverde (b.1962)

Gabriel Villa (b.1965)

Curated by Dolores Mercado, Cesáreo Moreno and Ricardo X. Serment

Together We Rise Boston

Join Together We Rise: A Counter-Inaugural Celebration of Resistance as we raise our voices for a more just, creative, & peaceful future. The one-of-a-kind event–to be held on the eve of the presidential inauguration–will include a procession to the theater, social justice art show, mobilization fair, and a call-to-action concert featuring a talented and inspiring set of performers including renowned musician Larry Watson and his ensemble.  Spoken word artist Ashley Rose Salomon will emcee the event. Additional performers to join the bill include spoken word poets, comedians, authors, dancers, and more.

Just making free Declaration of Immigration print.

Flayed: a collaborative installation by Eric J. Garcia, Salvador Jiménez-Flores and Gabriel Villa

October 25 - December 1, 2016
Gallery Talk: Wednesday, November 9, 2016, 3:30 - 4:30 p.m.
Gallery Closed: November 19 - 28 (Thanksgiving week)

Spotted on Cfile | No One Discovered America

Source: CFile

TEN ARTISTS SELECTED FOR BOSTON ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

TEN ARTISTS SELECTED FOR BOSTON ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

October 3, 2016

PUBLISHED BY:

MAYOR'S OFFICE

Mayor Walsh, the Office of Arts and Culture, and Boston Centers for Youth & Families announced the ten artists picked for the second year of the program.

BOSTON - Monday, October 3, 2016 - Mayor Martin J. Walsh, the Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, and Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF) today announced the ten artists selected for the City of Boston's second year of artists-­in-­residence program, Boston AIR. This second year of the Boston AIR program helps fulfill a commitment made in Boston Creates, the city's cultural plan, and expands the size of the artist cohort, increases the length of the residencies, and grounds each residency at BCYF through their community centers and core citywide initiatives, such as the BCYF Streetworker Program, youth summer programs, and leadership development for young women.

"Arts and culture form the building blocks that make our city thrive. They encourage us to engage with each other and connect to the larger community," said Mayor Walsh. "Boston AIR brings this creative practice into the work of our city departments. I am excited to announce the new Boston Artists in Residence and look forward to seeing the positive impact they will have on BCYF."

Recognizing and supporting artists' essential contribution in creating and maintaining a thriving, healthy and innovative city is a stated goal in the Boston Creates plan launched earlier this summer. Boston AIR is one initiative as part of the plan that will integrate creative thinking into the work of municipal departments and planning efforts.

Through Boston AIR, artists are supported as agents of reflection, collaboration, and activism, whether through process-oriented practice, direct community engagement, or as leaders of system-wide change projects at BCYF and other City agencies. The ten selected artists are invited to study and expand their own civic and social practice, alongside a parallel cohort from 10 BCYF community centers and other City employees who will explore methods to incorporate artistic social practice into government and community work. Both the artist and City cohorts will share examples of their work, attend master workshops and lectures by guest artists, and have opportunities to exchange ideas and co-design proposals.

The ten selected artists, each with firsthand knowledge of the cultures and communities of Boston, were chosen by a selection committee consisting of current Boston AIR participants, local arts professionals, BCYF leadership, and City staff. The artists are:

• Salvador Jimenez-Flores, an interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Jalisco, México. Jiménez­-Flores is currently participating in a two year-­long artist residency at the Harvard Ceramics Program, Office of the Arts at Harvard University. He is also a Resident Teaching Artist at Urbano Project and instructor at both Wheelock College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Harvard Ceramics Program, Office of the Arts at Harvard University.
• Maria Molteni, a multimedia artist, educator, and organizer who has lived and worked in Boston for the past 15 years. From fiber to found-object sculpture, puppetry to pedagogy, movement to publication, she employs tactile and tactical processes to encourage participation over spectatorship.
• Lina Giraldo, a Colombia-born, Boston-based artist, she explores the questions of being Latino in the US. This is why for over 15 years her work has been focused on creating messages where she depicts the fragility of our environment, immigration concerns, and community equality.
• Jennifer De Leon has worked as a teacher in Boston Public Schools, a public speaker, a college access counselor in Roxbury, a GrubStreet Creative Writing instructor, and most recently, as the Associates of the Boston Public Library Writer­-in-­Residence. She currently teaches at Emerson and Berklee and is working on two novels and an essay collection.
• Marjorie Saintil­-Belizaire is a Haitian-­American mixed media artist who lives and creates in Mattapan. Her work is driven by her fascination of color and the physicality of texture. With art degrees from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Boston University, she believes the making of art is an ongoing experiment in an ongoing process.
• Cornell Coley, M.Ed. is an experienced drummer, dancer, teacher, and public performance artist whose influences include the traditions of West and Central Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil. Also a trained HealthRHYTHMS facilitator and certified by the Drum Circle Facilitators Guild, he works in community-building, education, and therapy.
• Charles Coe is an author and poet. His poetry and prose has appeared in a number of literary reviews and anthologies and has published two books of poetry. He is in the second year of a three-year term as an Artist Fellow for the St. Botolph Club, an organization that supports arts and the humanities in Greater Boston.
• Ann Hirsch is a public artist, sculptor and educator creates site-specific works that integrate historical and contemporary practices. Ann gained wide recognition with a sculpture on the plaza of Boston City Hall dedicated to the legacy of human rights activist and basketball champion Bill Russell. She teaches at Rhode Island School of Design.
• John A. Walsh tells stories with and pictures. John is the co-author and illustrator of the graphic novel The Bad Times, a story of love and friendship set during the Irish Famine. His graphic narratives often explore the intersection of racism, religious bigotry, and immigration. 
• Rashin Fahandej is a multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose projects include feature documentaries, video-sound installations, photo, sculpture, and painting. Fahandej is currently a research fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab where she is researching new forms of documentary filmmaking and developing a transmedia project based on the narratives and stories in the city of Boston.

Each artist will be awarded a $22,500 stipend for a nine-month-long residency to develop and test ways that creative approaches can meaningfully impact the work of the public sector and society at large. Each artist will be paired with one of ten designated BCYF community centers and provided a studio space at that center.

"When we began the Boston Artists in Residence program, we hoped that by embedding the artists in City Departments  it would bring creative thought to municipal problem solving and project implementation," said Julie Burros, Chief of Arts and Culture for the City of Boston. "The work of our first three Artists in Residence exceeded our expectations. This time, we hope to have the same impact on the work being done by Boston Centers for Youth & Families."

The mission of Boston Centers for Youth & Families is to enhance the quality of life of Boston's residents by partnering with various organizations to offer a wide range of comprehensive programs and activities according to neighborhood needs and interests. BCYF's ACES programming framework (arts, civic  and community engagement, education, and sports and fitness) is designed to provide access to these programs at every BCYF center. Through Boston AIR, BCYF hopes to expand their arts and civic engagement programs.

The residencies will be grounded in the following community centers:

• BCYF Roslindale Community Center, Roslindale
• BCYF Blackstone Community Center, South End
• BCYF Perkins Community Center, Dorchester
• BCYF Mattahunt Community Center, Mattapan
• BCYF Quincy Community Center, Chinatown
• BCYF Curley Community Center, South Boston
• BCYF Tobin Community Center, Mission Hill
• BCYF Vine Street Community Center, Roxbury
• BCYF Curtis Hall Community Center, Jamaica Plain
• BCYF Hyde Park Community Center, Hyde Park

"There are so many benefits to being exposed to art at a young age," said William Morales, Commissioner of Boston Centers for Youth & Families. "We are honored to host these talented people in our community centers and look forward to seeing how their projects will help enhance the work that we do here at BCYF."

Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture (MOAC)

The Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture's mission is to support artists, the cultural sector, and to promote access to the arts for all. The office houses the Boston Cultural Council, the Boston Art Commission, the Mayor's Mural Crew,and the Poet Laureate program. Responsibilities include leading the City's cultural plan, Boston Creates; managing the Boston Artist-in-Residence program; curating exhibitions in City Hall; and operating the historic Strand Theater in Dorchester. For more information, please visit here.

About the Boston Creates Cultural Plan

The cultural plan was created out of a year-long community engagement effort designed to help local government identify cultural needs, opportunities, and resources and to prioritize, coordinate, and align public and private resources to strengthen cultural vitality over the long term.  The full cultural plan can be found online on the website.

Boston Centers for Youth & Families (BCYF)

The mission of Boston Centers for Youth & Families is to enhance the quality of life of Boston's residents by partnering with various organizations to offer a wide range of comprehensive programs and activities according to neighborhood needs and interests. BCYF operates 36 community centers which offer affordable programs ranging from after school, teen and girls-only programs to youth employment, violence prevention and intervention, senior activities, and recreation. For more information, please visit here. 

Source: https://www.boston.gov/news/ten-artists-selected-boston-artists-residence-program