November, 2018 | show full year | Close |
Event: | I Am AMERICA -Windsor Art Center | ||||||
Date: | November 8th, 2018. | ||||||
Time: | 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM | ||||||
Location: | Windsor Art Center | ||||||
Contact: | Pat 860-508-3186 or Windsor Art Center 860-688-2528 | ||||||
The panelists, distinguished Latin American artists, are Balam Soto, Corina Alvarezdelugo, Carlos Hernández Chávez and Juan Brito. MaryJoan Picone, a social worker with extensive experience with people and issues surrounding immigration at the Mexican- U.S. border, will moderate the panel. About the participants: Balam Soto, born in Guatemala, creates contemporary, exploratory artworks that fuse low tech with high tech, including interactive art installations, public artworks, and video. He designs innovative works that seamlessly connect the human and digital experience, incorporating intuitive, tactile interfaces that allow individuals to experience physical computing while forgetting they are interacting with an inanimate object. The work comes to life as they begin to explore. An award-winning, new media artist, Balam has exhibited in fine art venues worldwide, including New Zealand, New York, Canada, and Brazil. He has received numerous awards for his work, including from the World Maker Faire held at the New York Hall of Science Museum, the Hartford City Council (CT), the Mayor of the City of Hartford, CT and the Governors of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and from the National Congress of Guatemala. Corina Alvarezdelugo, born in Valencia, Venezuela received formal training with Venezuelan painter and sculptor Luis Alvarez de Lugo. She earned her BFA with Honors and Distinction from Albertus Magnus College, New Haven while raising her three children. Working with different materials and techniques in mixed media painting and sculpture, her work has been shown in galleries and museums in South America, the Caribbean, and in the USA, including the prestigious Salmagundi Club in New York City. She has won awards from major organizations in Connecticut and New York, including an Artist-in residency at the Vermont Studio Center with a Merit-based Grant, and a featured segment on Spotlight on the Arts on the TV Magazine, All Things Connecticut on CPTV (Connecticut Public Television). Her work is in private collections worldwide. Juan Brito, was born in Santiago, Chile where he earned his undergraduate degree in social work, advocated for human rights, and performed and composed music in the New Song Movement, which transformed traditional folk music to a call for social justice and change. He came to the U.S. in 1975. He obtained his MSW at UCONN, and co-founded a Spanish literary magazine and published two books about Chile. He is the cultural editor of La Voz Hispana de Connecticut, a state-wide newspaper for Spanish-speaking communities. He has collaborated on musical projects with Michael Uthoff and the Judy Dworin Ballet Ensemble. For Donde Estas, he and Angela Grano Luna, composed music to poems written by Chilean poet Marjorie Agosín that describe the uncertain fate of thousands of Chileans and Argentinians, who disappeared under Pinochet and Videla. A retired Hartford Schools social worker and clinician at the Institute for the Hispanic Family, he still sings in a duo with his wife, Rebecca, and performs with local groups promoting music from Latin America. Carlos Hernández Chávez, came to the United States in 1967 as a highly trained artist, having attended the prestigious Academia de San Carlos, UNAM’s Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas; and the INBA's Escuela de Pintura y Escultura La Esmeralda, in his native Mexico City. Settling in Hartford, he has distinguished himself, over the years, as a muralist, visual artist, photographer, educator, musician, and humanitarian. Both through his art and his civic leadership, he has worked to improve the lives of all people. He has earned numerous awards and recognitions for his art and his human rights advocacy including from six Hartford mayors, former governor Jodi Rell, and many organizations. His paintings and murals been exhibited and collected internationally. His most recent mural, completed in 2013, can be seen in the atrium of Hartford’s City Hall. It depicts the story of his family’s migrant-worker roots. MaryJoan Picone LCSW has been a licensed clinical social worker serving diverse populations in a variety of settings the Hartford area, for 27 years. In addition to mind, body, and spirit work, she passionately works for social justice, helping migrants on both sides of the U.S. and Mexico border and advocating for a practical and just immigration reform. She created the Emmaus Migrant Advocacy project- to promote awareness of the economic, health and psycho-social plight of our brothers and sisters in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The other intention and focus of the migrant advocacy project is to build community with migrant and seasonal farm workers here in central CT; joining in grassroots efforts to prevent deportations and assisting with access to medical care, legal aid and psycho-social assimilation. Americana 1 is made possible through a grant from the CT Office of the Arts to Rough Edges Art Production www.reap1.org with additional support from the Windsor Art Center www.windsorartcenter.org For additional information please contact Pat Fahy at 860-508-3186 or email pat@reap1.org |