Gulf Coast Art Corridor

La Lengua Muerta

2010-04-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

 

Exhibition Dates: April 9 – May 15, 2010

Daniel Adame
Chuy Benitez
Aisen Caro Chacin
Claudia Cruz
Tito-Fabian
Sebastian Forray
Jonatan Lopez
Angel Quesada
Stephanie Saint Sanchez
Alex Soares

A group of uprooted and acclimating emerging artists engaged in conversations with established curators, critics and artists Surpik Angelini, Elia Arce, Margarita Cabrera, Aisen Chacin, Ruben Cordova, and Delilah Montoya to create works that both subversively and romantically embrace classification as a point of departure to investigate historical and current geography.
At the core of these dialogues lays the need to move beyond traditional categories of “Latin American Art” and to frame new definitions, visual languages and creative practices among these artists in Houston. La Lengua Muerta yields visual and performance works to be as diverse (in form, subject, aesthetics, and influences) as being Latino.

Conceived and Commissioned by Elia Arce
Curated by Aisen Caro Chacin
Edited by Ruben Cordova
Hosted by labotanica

2010-03-04T15:16:00.000-08:00

View Gulf Coast Art Corridor in a larger map

Gulf Coast Art Corridor Fundraiser

2009-11-12T10:41:00.000-08:00

Gulf Coast Art Corridor is an experiment on art and social
transformation. It facilitates communication and artistic interactions
between folk, conceptual artists and community organizers. Funded
by New Voices, TransArt Foundation, DiverseWorks, Gulf Coast Fund
and individual donors.
Elia Arce is a pioneer performance artist working in a wide
variety of media, including video installation, performance
art, experimental theater, writing, photo, video and sculptural
performance. Her work has been performed extensively at national
and international venues. She has been published and has received
considerable critical attention in Ms. Magazine, Latina Magazine,
High Performance, Heresis, Conjunto, Artlies, ArtWeek, Out of
Character, The Other Los Angelesses and ArtForum amongst others.
Arce has received awards from The Rockefeller Foundation, The
J. Paul Getty Foundation and the NEA. She founded and facilitated
the Performance Art Lab at the University of Houston, which has
now become an independent performance collective. A dual citizen
of Costa Rica & the US, Arce is currently a 2008 New Voices fellow
based in Houston, Texas. and the founder and artistic director of this
new social sculpture project.

Hosted by:
Surpik Angelini
Chairpersons:
Aisen Chacin and Maria Cristina Manrique-Henning
Host Committee:
Irene Aguilera-Barrantes
Maureen & Jeff Jennings
Alex Bigsley
Carlos E. Arce Lara
Loris Bradley
Nicole Laurent
Aisen Caro Chacin
Samantha Martinez & Jose Saul
Marcela Descalzi
Sixto Wagan
Loli Kolber Fernandez
Sixto Wagan
Elena Wortham
Tamara Hardikar

The Green House Collective Workshops

2009-11-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

Elia Arce’s research-based practice is frequently concerned with communities’ subcultures. She proceeds by acquainting herself with particular groups, their histories and values, and then producing films/videos, installations, performances and event based works related to her findings.

Her artistic practice is marked by ethnographical inquiry, and an interest in

events or informal movements that bind people together.

The works come out of a participative-collaborative approach. People who she meets or take part in the process, help guide the course the project takes, and contribute to the final format of the project. In this way the people she comes in contact with feel that they share ownership of the work whatever the final project ends up being.

Green House Collective Workshops

Light Green/ Dark Green

2009-11-11T22:56:00.000-08:00

by Elia Arce

Continuity, Challenge, Care, Commitment, Respect, Growth

Many artists before me have worked the garden art idea at PRH. I want to contribute to their efforts by leaving behind a visual/written/green house proposal. The Residents’ Council, gardening experts and this experiment will inform this document.

Through the process of researching and designing this living installation, I learned about different alternative gardening methods. During the next four months this row house will be used as a gardening laboratory, growing and producing wheat grass and other greens every few weeks. Aisen C. Chacin and Malcom Smith will assist me as we research, experiment and document this process. The goal is that by the end of February 2010, we will have a clearer idea of what is needed to develop support for a future permanent sustainable garden at PRH.

Special thanks to Darin Floyd from the Progressive Garden

Hat Workshop

2009-11-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

Susan Fitzsimmons

2009-04-10T01:47:00.001-07:00

Elia Arce and Susan Fitzsimmons by

"Art Save Us" Arce's favorite piece by Fitzsimmons

Assistant professor, Art Department, USM

and Director of Art Incubator in Hattiesburg, Mississippi

(from Susan) A few words about the workshop:

Easter hats will be very artistic this year thanks to the efforts of Anita Powell, Elia Arce and Aisen Chacin. I was able to witness the results of the hat making workshop, and the pride of creative accomplishment felt by all participants. Anita has a rare gift for teaching. She is passing on knowledge of millinery, a rare art these days. Hat making provides the possibility of entrepreneurship as well as creative pride.

It was my great pleasure to host these artists. We stayed up late talking about the state of the arts as we have been able to perceive it, in these economic times and in this region. We are all trying to do our part to make life more rich in dreams and art that touches people where they live.

Thank you, Elia for bringing us this gift.

Susan

March Gulf Coast Trip

2009-04-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

Monday March 23, 2009
Left Houston with Elia Arce at 12:00pm towards New Orleans, LA. We arrived at Anita Powell's house where we ate diner and slept. Anita Powell is a hat designer originally from Los Angeles, CA. She has been living in New Orleans since 1994, and has been making church hats ever since. She currently volunteers at Common Ground free health clinic created for under served communities after hurricane Katrina. She has implemented the Art Therapy program. Elia Arce commissioned Anita Powell to offer three workshops throughout the Gulf Coast region.

Tuesday March 24, 2009
Mrs. Powell, Elia Arce, and I left to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. We arrived at the Hattiesburg cultural center near downtown, where Patty Hall, head of the City of Hattiesburg Arts Council. They had prepared a few tables for the workshop, and signed up ten senior citizens that belong to a church. The ladies had an amazing amount of fun. I took photographs and video footage. I interviewed a few seniors, as well as Patty Hall. Everyone seemed very content with the project, as it allowed the city to keep seniors in the community active through the arts. The women also talked about having tea parties with their new hats. Patty Hall paid for the ten women to take the workshop with money from the City of Hattiesburg Arts Council, and she assured these types of activities would continue, and that she would definitely contact Anita Powell again.
We spent the night at Susan Fitzsimmons's home. Susan is an Assistant Professor at the School of Art in University of Southern Mississippi and the Director of the Arts Incubator. She has an MFA in painting/drawing, and worked in sculpture and other media for years. She would say, that she is an artifact-having been around long enough by now. She was an exceptional host. Elia Arce, Anita Powell and I are very grateful she opened her home to us.

Hat Workshop Hattiesburg, Mississippi
(click on the photo for slideshow)

Wednesday March 25, 2009
We left Hattiesburg, MS after a nice breakfast in a coffee shop called Boheme. It seems like every town has one of those. Susan Fitzsimmons had some of her paintings in exhibit there. We drove towards Biloxi, MS. We greeted by Rosa Herrin, Community Outreach Program Coordinator at El Pueblo/The Village and Anne Kotleba, Community based art coordinator at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum. The women taking this workshop were the most diverse, coming from all different communities and ages. I met Trihn Le, one of Elia’s New Voices co-fellow. She is a community organizer at the Hope Coordination Center in Biloxi, where the Vietnamese community which is very large due to this community's contribution to the national shrimp industry. I also met Annette Hollowell, community organizer at the Mississippi Center for Justice and other community organizers that work with the Katrina Research Center in the area. This workshop seemed very valuable in uniting people from different communities and in making new connections within themselves.

We stayed at a casino, of the many in Biloxi, called the IP. It was very interesting to find out that government spending in this area has focused on casino construction and remodeling. Apparently casinos are what people want and need to boost up the economy in the area. Apparently people from Mobile, Alabama frequent here because it very close.

Hat Workshop
Biloxi, Mississippi
(click on the photo for slideshow)

Thursday March 26, 2009
We left Biloxi, MS and drove to Mobile, Alabama. Surprisingly this was the shortest trip of all, less than an hour. We arrived at the Housing First organization. Emile Wilson works there and is also a New Voices fellow along with Simone Washington who helped with the logistics of the workshop in Mobile. They prepared lunch for us, and also a workroom for the hat workshop. The Housing First organization was very helpful in hosting the hat workshop. They were all very excited to participate, and even made posters for the event. Elia and I were finally able to make our hats, since two of the ladies had cancelled. I was able to shoot some photographs of the whole process. The women taking this workshop were there for different reasons. Two of them had been previously homeless, and had gotten a home through this organization. Others were friends of the event organizers and some of the staff in the office also participated. I was glad to make a hat and felt very lucky to have the opportunity. Later that night we ate at a seafood restaurant and had the best, award winning, Gumbo in the whole Gulf Coast. That night we stayed at the Ramada inn in downtown Mobile. It is such a beautiful city, I was amazed of the immense trees in the front lawns of the beautiful southern homes with large columns and wraparound porches.

Hat Workshop
Mobile, Alabama
(click on the photo for slideshow)

Friday March 27, 2009
We left Mobile, Alabama in the early morning and drove to Anita Powell’s home in New Orleans, LA. On our way back home we stopped in Baton Rouge, LA to find an authentic place to eat. After a while of driving around and asking from suggestions from people in the area, we found a huge thrift shop/coffee shop/art gallery. There was an old man playing the mandolin, and Elia and I froze in awe of our new treasure. We spent 3 hours talking to this man, and found he is the Italian professor at LSU and has been living in Baton Rouge for about 30 years. Elia naturally bought his CD and exchanged contact information. Unluckily the coffee shop was closed, so after the long talk with Garret we went on our way to find food. We were finally directed to the most authentic place to eat boudin in Baton Rouge. This grocery store/ fast food restaurant had a huge pool filled with fish at the entrance. I had never tried boudin and specially seafood sausage. It was amazing! We were so hungry!

Elia Arce was able to pay and provide the opportunity of creating a hat for 10 women from Biloxi and 10 women from Mobile, including me. I was able to give a presentation on a short history of hats, and through this presentation educate some women about the famous church hat and its origins.

I learned through Elia Arce’s project that anthropological fieldwork is necessary in creating a thesis for a social action that results in the creation of art and culture.

I am very grateful to have taken this journey with Elia Arce and Anita Powell. I met wonderful people and realized the thirst for community and art in the cities we visited. I am sure this project has touched many lives in positive ways, and it will continue to do so. I am also eager to work towards the next project that will continue the connection of people in the Gulf Coast Region through the Arts.

Aisen Chacin
Intern: Media Production

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

2009-02-27T22:52:00.003-08:00

Hattiesburg, Mississippi
(click on the photo for slideshow)

Mobile, Alabama

2009-02-27T22:52:00.001-08:00

Mobile, Alabama
(click on the photo for slideshow)

New Orleans

2009-02-27T22:51:00.001-08:00

New Orleans
(click on the photo for slideshow)

Train Ride from Houston, TX to New Orleans, LA

2009-02-27T22:49:00.001-08:00

Train Ride from Houston, Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana
(click on the photo for slideshow)

Trinh Le Biloxi, Mississippi Tour

2009-02-27T12:09:00.000-08:00

Trinh Le's Biloxi Tour November 2008
(click on the photo for slideshow)

November 15- 22, 2008 Biloxi, Mississippi- Gulfport, Mississippi- Mobile, Alabama

2009-02-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

Biloxi- Mobile
(click on the photo for slideshow)

Blog for Biloxi & Mobile

Howdy blog devotees!
We’ve been away from catching you up on our many accomplishments and milestones because we’ve been so busy.

I’m currently in Biloxi (pronounced /bi lux’ ee/), sitting with Elia Arce and preparing for a meeting today with representatives of the diverse communities found here (Vietnamese, African American, Latina/o, Croation, to name a few). Today’s meeting is focusing on making a walking tour brochure to show the civil rights and struggles of the area as well as to bring more arts to the area. Some of the groups represented are the University of Southern Mississippi – Long Beach Campus, Hands Across America, East Biloxi Relief and Redevelopment Agency, and more. The people we’ve been meeting are devoted to the intersections of people that we know as community (broad sense of the term, and yet the personal sense too). They’re devoted to social activism, including the arts as a significant part of this. Elia and I are so impressed with them all that we’re referring to them as “the real deal.”

We’ve found the real deal in unsuspecting places: an owner of a Latina/o store named La Bamba who’s so excited that she was already planning an entire event for us. :-) We spoke with shrimpers who explained their business and how Hurricane Katrina is still have a detrimental effect on their business (shrimp boats are commonly being sold for half their value as people leave this long-standing local business). We saw Lady Patrice singing at a local bar, Just Us, that we’re hoping to meet because she knocked our socks off.

And of course we’ve had some fun moments to ourselves as well, drinking beer on the beach (don’t tell the authorities we had glass bottles!); putting on the Waffle House songs from their juke box; chatting with wait staff and counter staff at various places. Although a little chilly, it’s been very sunny and we’ve shed the humidity of Houston – ahhhhhhh.

Oskar Sonnen

Hot, Humid & Steamy

2008-10-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

So, we are getting ready for our first trip!

Oskar Sonnen will accompany me to Biloxi and Mobile this coming Nov. 15th to Nov. 22nd.

We will be meeting with Community Empowerment Coordinator Trinh Le from the East Biloxi Coordination, Relief and Redevelopment Agency and with Developer of Housing First Enterprises Emile Wilson from Housing First, Inc. in Mobile. Both are 2008 New Voices Fellows.

We will also have the great opportunity to meet with Deanne Nuwer from the Katrina Research Center at the University of Southern Mississippi and at with Susan Fitzsimmons, head of the Art Department. Curator Anna Harris at the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi and Jason Clark, gallery manager and exhibitions coordinator at Space 301 in Mobile, Alabama have also gracefully accepted to meet with us. We are extremely excited to say the least and look forward to posting photos from our trip when we get back to Houston.

Until then!

Elia Arce

Artistic Director

Brown in the Third Ward

2008-09-27T12:44:00.000-07:00

Brown in the Third Ward

Getting My Feet Wet!

2008-08-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hello! Just wanted to let y’all know about my new project, linking the gulf coast from Mobile, Alabama to Houston, Texas by connecting social justice organizations with artists whose work deal with community concerns through conceptual and experimental art. This project is made possible by a New Voices fellowship I was awarded this year. I will be developing the work through DiverseWorks, who is hosting me as an Artist-in-Residence for the next two years. For more info: Email me at eliaarce@aol.com

Here’s the Gulf Coast Art Corridor proposal, let me know what you think- suggest artists, venues, scenic routes and good food along the way!

Thanks so much!

Gulf Coast Art Corridor Proposal

Independent artist Elia Arce will develop her new project: Gulf Coast Art Corridor, during her two year artist-in- residency at DiverseWorks. Arce's 2008 New Voices fellowship is funded by the American Education Development Foundation/ New Voices Fellowship in Washington DC, a Ford Foundation initiative. Arce will design and create a Gulf Coast Art Corridor that will match social justice organizations with arts organizations, and folk artists with experimental artists, from Mobile, Alabama to Houston, Texas. The project's objective is to identify and strengthen the cultural heritage and new artistic languages of the gulf coast.

Arce, a performance artist who has a strong history of creating experimental performances that deal with community issues, will work in identifying the art organizations, social organizations and artists who will become part of this project. This direct connection to the community will ensure that the issues addressed reach the core of community member concerns.

Utilizing an alternate format to mainstream exhibitions, the Gulf Coast Art Corridor will present local artists in each city, and offer different art workshops during 2009 and 2010. The cities that we will visit are: Hattiesburg, Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Houston. The Art Corridor will become a way to unite the different artists that are speaking of local concerns and create an outlet for such artists to expand their visibility and strengthen their artistic voices.

Because the success of this project is based on community relationships, the research time that is spent in each community is crucial. Accurately identifying the issues and artists to be featured in each city is a delicate factor. This is why local partnering organizations in each community is fundamental for the integrity of the project.

New Voices fellow Elia Arce, has already identified other Gulf Coast fellows in the region who have already express their interest in participating in the Art Corridor. The organizations that these fellows work with include: East Biloxi, Relief and Redevelopment Agency; Common Ground Health Clinic; New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice; Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children; Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana; Capital Area Family Violence Intervention Center of Baton Rouge; Gulf Coast Teaching Family Services.

Written ongoing updates after each experience on each city will help us modify and adjust to the needs that will arise along the way.

Video documentation of this process will ensure that this self-determination effort can continue and not be forgotten by the new generation of artists that are joining us in this experience. A printed catalogue of the different artwork that was produced during this two year endeavor will be published by 2011.

By supporting and sustaining communication and artistic interactions between folk and conceptual artists based in the Gulf Coast, we hope to help preserve the cultural heritage in the region while influencing and strengthening emerging artistic voices.

If by the Summer of 2010 the artists, art organizations and social justice organizations who have participated in the Gulf Coast Art Corridor are actively interested in utilizing all the different affiliations they made along the way for future art projects; then the Art Corridor concept would have succeeded.

Dinner Rules

2008-08-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Check out pictures from the "Dinner Rules" performative event at the Performance Art Lab blog!

Gulf Coast Art Corridor

2008-07-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Gulf Coast Corridor! This is a 2 year project that will connect art organizations and social justice organizations along the Gulf Coast of the United States of America. From Houston, Tx. to Mobile, Alabama.

Visit out friends at diverseworks.org!