La Lengua Muerta

La Lengua Muerta




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

View Gulf Coast Art Corridor in a larger map

Gulf Coast Art Corridor Fundraiser

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

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

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

Susan Fitzsimmons

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