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Colectivo Rasquache collaboration

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We are doing workshops, collaborating, and exhibiting together at Visible Records, a new gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The public can visit the gallery at 1740 Broadway St. Tuesday through Friday from 11AM to 5PM, and Saturdays from 1PM to 5PM. August 6 – September 14, 2021. Or listen to our interview together.

Participating artists: Ateri Miyawatl, Bryan Ortiz, Ana Quiroz, Ken Rinaldo, Amy Youngs, Yusuf Adbdul Lateef, Lydia Moyer, Federico Cuatlacuatl, Karina Monroy, and Jairo Banuelos. 

In Tiahue Tocha (let’s go home) Colectivo Rasquache continues its project of engaging with transborder reality through material and social invention, this time with particular attention to brickmaking as a homage and timeline of Coapan. As construction methods in Mexico have evolved, brick-making, which, along with farming, was the primary occupation of many from Coapan who have since migrated to the US, gave way to cement block. Cement blocks are not made from local materials unlike red bricks or adobe bricks. For our installation at Visible Records, the red clay of Virginia provides fresh material for old ways of making as we ask:

  • What new things are built when we are apart?  
  • What opportunities arise out of absence or restriction? 
  • What possibilities might make themselves known that otherwise would never have been?
  • How do we share them?
  • What happens when nostalgia gives way to futurity?

The workshop I did with Ken Rinaldo was called “Unmaking with Worms”. Participants built mini sculptures and placed them into a baby bassinet where composting worms live. Our building materials were food and paper waste; egg cartons and discarded vegetables sourced from the compost pile of a nearby community garden. During the workshop, we explored how worm ecosystems “unmake” waste matter and “remake” it into fertile compost.

During the run of the exhibition, a time-lapse camera is capturing the transformation of the sculptures. Looking forward to seeing the worms work!