Author: gduranbarraza

I’m very happy to announce that my Ph.D. student Atenas Campbell is currently a visiting research student at Leiden University, Holland.

Last Fall, I directed this project called Se despide, de lo que se perdió for a Multidisciplinary Art Class. Students worked around the concept of masculinity. It is important to mention that all students were women. They decided to capture in video masculine sadness.  For that, they interviewed their male friends and recorded their faces, looking for sad expressions.  Also they did a mashup out of many movies showing sad men.

The final show happened in a cantina (a bar). The decision was made based on the tendency of  men going to a bar when they are sad. So in this bar called La Tuna, students installed a projector to show the video of their sad friends. Within the TV sets across the bar, they installed the mashup. Also, they created phrases using cut-up techniques, introducing elements of chance. These phrases were originally taken from the interviews with their male friends and implied some unsatisfied longing or desire. Thus, the phrases that satisfied the criteria were written, then cut into parts, then rearranged randomly to form a new phrase such as: Dondé está el amor, no sé cómo (Where is the love, I don’t know how). The phrases were written on different mirrors across the bar using lipstick.

Finally I got the approval from Matthias Fritsch (visual artist from Berlin) to upload his magnific experimental video Season 10 with music from OCHOCARAS (visual artist and music producer from Juarez). This video was presented during Project Space Festival Juarez 2016 which I was lucky to direct.

I collaborated with theater actor and director Sebastién Lange during this workshop. The workshop was about erasing the borders between the visual arts and theater. Students were either actors or visual artists. This is what it happened.

Brainstorm during workshop: 

Theater exercise during the workshop:

First prototype: 

Second prototype: 

The following is an art project that I curated last November. We are planning to do this festival every two years. For more information go to projectspacefestivaljuarez.com

Project Space Festival Juárez was lead by the question: Is it possible to have a deeper understanding of the identity of Juárez by reflecting upon the meaning of a celebration? Artists from Berlin and Juárez have been invited to collaborate and generate a visual dialogue addressing the idea of a celebration.

Juárez is known for its nightlife, which began to grow during the prohibition period in the United States. People from the north would come every weekend to Juárez to have a good time. There were many nightclubs and shows every night. It was seen as a no mans land of freedom and decadence. However, a few years ago, Juárez was rated as the most violent city of the world. The main cause of the violence was narco-traffic.

With the Project Space Festival Juárez, the organizers start a discussion about different aspects of celebration and its meaning for Juárez.

Project Space Festival surgió de la pregunta: ¿Es posible obtener un entendimiento más profundo de la identidad de Juárez mediante una reflexión de la celebración y lo que ésta significa? Artistas de Berlín y Juárez han sido invitados a colaborar y generar diálogo visual que desarrolle la idea de la celebración.

Juárez es conocido por su vida nocturna, que se empezó a gestar durante la era de la prohibición en Estados Unidos; personas del norte venían cada fin de semana a la ciudad a pasar un buen rato. En aquella época había muchos clubes nocturnos y shows en vivo diferentes cada noche.

Era como una tierra de nadie de libertad y decadencia. Sin embargo, hace unos años Juárez fue calificada como la ciudad más violenta del mundo. El principal motivo de esta violencia fue el narcotráfico.

Con el Project Space Festival Juárez, los organizadores invitan a una discusión sobre los distintos aspectos de la celebración y su significado para la ciudad.

PROGRAM

24-28 November 2016

Day 1

“Acción y Muestra”

with/con: Matthias Fritsch, Dj OCHOCARAS; VJs: Carolina Arroyo, Daniel PG, and eseChuy.
Location: Outside Museo de Arte Ciudad Juárez

with/con: Sarah Schoenfeld, Stine Marie Jacobsen, Juan Flores, Nayeli Hernández, Adrian Ricalday, Alexandra César, Ivan de Anda, Fabian Escarzaga.
Location/Lugar: Video Room at Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez

Day 2

“Anniversary”

with/con: Boris Eldgasden, Alicia Fernández, DJ Pleasurekraft
Location: Hardpop

Day 3

“Claiming Space!”                                                                                                                                       with/con: Nora Mayr, co-founder of Project Space Festival Berlin

Mayr began by presenting a little bit of the history of Project Space Festival Berlin then she focused on what is a project space? and the different independent spaces currently in Berlin. A project space should be an independent space (or not even necessary a  specific space), that escapes the classical white cube,  that is non-profit and preferably financially independent from institutions. Such financial independence allows a freedom in terms of creativity and timing. Such spaces are able to do what they want whenever they want. Then she described some of the 150 independent spaces in Berlin. She ended her talk by saying: “So I would say if you want to be seen, if you want to help others to be seen. If you don’t see the exhibitions or events you like. Just do it yourself. There is nothing that can stop you. No reason why not to do it. Believe that in what is interesting for you most likely is also interesting for other people out there. Test out see how it works”.

Mayr empezó presentando un poco de la historia del Project Space Festival Berlín y después pasó a la pregunta ¿qué es un Project Space? Y los distintos espacios independientes actualmente activos en aquella ciudad. Un Project Space debe ser un espacio independiente (a veces ni siquiera tiene que ser un espacio en específico), que evite ser el tradicional cubo blanco, sin ánimo de lucro y financieramente independiente de las instituciones. Tal independencia permite una mayor creatividad y libertad respecto al tiempo de exhibición al público; estos lugares tienen la libertad de hacer lo que quieran cuando quieran. Después de esto describió algunos de los 150 espacios independientes de Berlín.

Terminó su plática diciendo: “Así que les diría, si quieren ser vistos y quieren ayudar a que otros sean vistos, si no se presentan las exhibiciones o los eventos que ustedes quieren ver, háganlo ustedes mismos. Nada los puede detener. No hay motivo para no hacerlo, crean que lo que para ustedes es interesante debe serlo para otras personas. Prueben a ver qué funciona”.

Artist Talk                                                                                                                                                   with/con: Stine Marie Jacobsen

Jacobsen talked about three of her projects. As an artist she works with topics related to language, ethics, and violence. One of her more recent projects is called Law Shifters, which began in 2015 and it is still going. It is about working with teenagers in a workshop where they are asked to generate their own laws. They generate laws in relation to freedom and immigration.  Once their laws are written, a lawyer translates them into the technical language of the law. Once the laws are ready, they are engraved or printed in different materials. The second project she talked about is called German for Artists which is a book with simple german phrases that are related to contemporary art. She mentioned that when she began doing this work, she began to improve her german a lot, therefore discovering that the best way to learn a language is by teaching it to others. The third project presented was Direct Approach where Jacobsen interviews people about violent movies they have seen. The idea is generating a safe space where people can talk about violence. At the end of the process, participants created a poster about the movie they talked about.

Jacobsen habló sobre tres de sus proyectos; como artista trabaja con tópicos relacionados con el lenguaje, la ética y la violencia. Uno de sus proyectos más recientes se llama Law Shifters, empezó en 2015 y sigue activo; en éste se trabaja con adolescentes en un taller en el que se les propone que generen sus propias leyes, generalmente las hacen referentes a la libertad y la migración, y una vez escritas un abogado las traduce al lenguaje técnico de la Ley; ya listas se graban o se imprimen en distintos materiales. El segundo proyecto del que habló fue German for Artists, que es un libro con frases comunes en alemán que pueden ser asociadas con el arte contemporáneo; mencionó que cuando empezó a realizar este trabajo su dominio del alemán mejoró mucho, descubriendo así que la mejor forma de aprender un lenguaje es enseñándolo. El tercer proyecto presentado fue Direct Approach, en el que Jacobsen entrevista a personas sobre las películas violentas que han visto; aquí la idea es crear un espacio seguro en el que las personas puedan hablar de la violencia; al terminar el proceso, los participantes crean un afiche sobre la película de la que hayan hablado.

Location/Lugar: Centro Cultural de las Fronteras

Day 4

“Lucha Libre”

with/con: Trimegistro & Aereo vs. Akantus & Fussion; Diosa del Ring vs Zafiro; Mini Fussion & Mundano vs. Centinela & Mr. Alfa; Rabia vs. Kempo Jr. Moderator: Cassandro el Exótico
Location/Lugar: Bazar del Muno at Plaza Benito Juárez

Day 5

“La Fiesta”

with/con: Sébastien Lange, Perla de la Rosa, Christian Javier Valenzuela.
Location/Lugar: Telón de Arena

Very happy to be part of this project. Artists’ Exercises is a platform for sharing and distributing fragments of artists’ educational strategies-with contributions from over fifty international artists. If you want to learn more about it, follow the following link: http://www.artistsexercises.org/

This is what was presented early February 2016 in Seattle at Soil Gallery. It consists on a VJ performance specially created for the event. It is inspired by different references associated with the grunge movement, and it was presented along with a DJ set by OCHOCARAS. Participants interested in interacting with me as I was performing were asked whether they wanted to have their picture taken with a polaroid as documentation of the event.

Early January, Barrio Dulce was presented in Juárez. Heather Gray took the time to come to Juárez to do a VJ presentation with me and DJ Ochocaras. The show happened around my neighborhood and it was a lot of fun.  Below is a short video about it. We would like to thank: Colectivo Jellyfish, Ivan De Anda, Jesus Cárdenas, Zystem, and Persia Campbell for helping us with this project.

http://www.borderarte.com/blog/archives/02-2016

Through original videography, community events, street art and urban site-specific projections, Barrio Dulce celebratespan dulce and the Mexican bakeries that support neighborhoods, community and culture. Pan dulce is hand-crafted artisanal bread made by proud bakers, and consumed daily by many people in the Tucson, Arizona and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua where the Barrio Dulce project has been produced and presented. During the project, artists Gabriela Duran and Heather Gray worked with La Estrella Bakery (http://laestrellabakeryincaz.com/) in Tucson and Panadería Aurora in Juárez and recorded interviews and video of the baking process, gathering stories from the owners and workers, gathering stories from the owners and workers. Barrio Dulce hosted screening events at the bakeries or nearby, rather than screening the videos to an outside audience at a theater or film festival. At the events, the videos are remixed and projected large-scale on the buildings. The images and sounds light up the neighborhoods, and the bakeries publically perform their stories, which are normally hidden behind walls. Neighbors gather in the streets or parking lots, eating pan dulce, and watching the projections animate a space they might visit everyday. How does this project exist bi-nationally? Tucson and Juarez are cities with strong traditions of pan dulce. They are of similar size and latitude with distinct “border identities”, and social and political issues that are tied to border dynamics. The project has also been presented live in Guadalajara, and exhibited in Valparaiso, Chile –cities with their own incredible traditions of bread and baking. The project was created by Gabriela Durán, a new media artist and professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, in collaboration with Tucson-based artist and videographer Heather Gray. Gabriela is connected directly and emotionally to the project because of memories of growing up in her father’s bakery in her neighborhood in Juárez. About halfway through the project Jellyfish Colectivo (http://jellyfishcolectivo.com), a street art collective in Juárez, joined us and created a mural celebrating negocios del barrio leaving a more permanent mark in the neighborhoods. What does it mean to be artists living and working in Arizona today? It is an enormous privilege and responsibility to live in a desert and a border region. A lifetime of questioning and learning is required to try to understand how to live in a place that is both fragile and resilient with a complex history of migration, and colonization. Heather has lived in Arizona her whole life. Gabriela has lived in Juárez her whole life. They are committed to staying, inspired by the way artists and communities respond to the political climate, assert themselves and their stories, survive, and seek justice and social change. What can we expect to see from Barrio Dulce in 2016? We are focusing on bringing Jellyfish Colectivo for their first street art engagement in Tucson, to continue the cross-border exchange and conversation. There is still a lot of information we have the needs to be presented. For example, when we were doing interviews in Juárez, we learned that bakers used to have a union that helped create fair paid jobs for bakers. We also found unique stories about each bakery. For instance, there was one bakery in Juárez that, in its golden years, would be open 24 hours. People would go at 4am to get a sweet bread and free coffee. We would like to present this part of the project either online at barriodulce.com or at a conference. How do you feel that Barrio Dulce creates or supports social change?  Today, many Mexican bakeries and other small businesses on both sides of the border are disappearing, downsizing or automating their process under pressure from supermarkets, low-wage jobs, downturned economies, urban revitalization schemes, marginalization of migrants and violence. As a result, decades of memories, skills, meaningful well-paid jobs, and culture with connections to place are at risk. The two cities face different threats, though it is the same source –the globalization of corporate neoliberalism– which has different consequences on each side of the border. Barrio Dulce poses the idea that something as humble as a bakery holds a margin against these threats. The projections at the bakeries help rethink a relationship to the city and neighborhood itself. Our project reflects upon the importance of Mexican bakeries, not only in terms of community but also seeing how they form and affect our identities, activate the local economy, and create safer environments. Without overstating the impact of one art project, we see the need for creative responses to our situation, because we know art has the power to shape the collective imagination over time

I will be in Seattle next week for HEPTADECAGON: Soil Invitational. I will be presenting a new piece called Saint Monday. So exited about this.