DISTANCE LEARNING
EDUCATION PROGRAMS
PRESS & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
WORKING WITH ARTISTS
RESOURCES FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE
LARGE SCALE EVENTS
SPOTLIGHT
A look back at some of my favorite events, workshops, collaborations and teaching moments.
OPEN STUDIO: Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay
Saturday, August 4, 2018: Inspired by the artistic traditions of the Taíno people of Puerto Rico, artists Jorge González, Alice Chéveres, and Francisco González invited families to join them for a day of collaborative artmaking and storytelling.
Since the nineteenth-century tobacco workers in Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands would elect someone to read the news or classic works of literature as they rolled tobacco leaves into cigars. This act of public reading comes from a long-standing tradition, still practiced today in some Caribbean Islands. In the Theater, families were invited to braid and weave enea, a material used in traditional Puerto Rican crafts, as they listened to readings of poetry and traditional Puerto Rican stories throughout the day.
Together, Jorge González, Alice Chéveres, and Francisco González began the workshop series Taller Cabachuelas in which people gather to study traditional Taíno pottery techniques. These traditions come from Indigenous knowledge that has been passed on overtime. Chéveres teaches these classes in her home in Puerto Rico. In the studio, families learned from Chéveres and joined her in making clay coil pots.
This program was produced in conjunction with the exhibition Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art.