Espejos
May 22—August 9, 2008
Teresa Ortiz, Marienela Molina Rodas
bottom: Misael Lopez, Roberto Rivera
Somos Espejos/ Que reflejan nuestro rostro color tierra…—Excerpt from poem “Espejos” by Teresa Ortiz
Espejos is an artist mentorship program designed to support the development of new and emerging artists of diverse Latino/a backgrounds living within the counties of Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington. Mentees are paired with mentors of the same discipline over a period of 3-5 months, are provided resources to purchase necessary art materials, receive digital media training to create their portfolio on CD or DVD, and are presented in a final exhibition and performance alongside works by their mentors.
What is unique about Espejos 2008?
Two Artistic Disciplines:
Literature: poetry, cancion (songs), essay and visual arts
Visual Arts: Painting, mixed media and graffiti art
Graffiti art was added based on the mentee’s background and interest in this form of visual arts. This was a timely opportunity because Intermedia Arts had just initiated The G.A.M.E. (Graffiti Art Mentoring and Education). This year’s visual arts mentee had an opportunity to be one of the first emerging graffiti artists to be mentored according to The Rules of The G.A.M.E.
Collective Literature and Visual Arts
This year, the Espejos mentors, mentees and artist interns decided to take the spirit of collaboration to a more inter-disciplinary level.
The three literary artists – Teresa Ortiz (Coordinator/Literary Mentor), Marienela Molina Rodas (Literary Mentee) and Marion Gómez (Literary Artist Intern) – each wrote a poem which were then interpreted by the visual artists - Cecilia Pino Godoy (Visual Arts Mentor), Misael Lopez (Visual Arts Mentee) and Roberto Rivera (Visual Arts Intern) as three-in-one oil paintings.
The intention of the participating artists was to work closely together in shaping a narrative and visual representation that could then include the audience’s perspectives. The resulting collaborative work is presented as a collective visual art and literary piece in the Sandy Agustin Gallery. A large video projection in the gallery’s west wall demonstrates the resulting merging of word and image, randomly paired so that gallery visitors and viewers can experience the multiple combinations that can be possible when artists work collectively towards a common purpose.
Espejos is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council through a grant from The McKnight Foundation and an appropriation from the Minnesota Legislature.