The work is titled “Cultural Prosthetics.” Similar to medical prosthetics, which are artificial extensions that replace missing body parts typically lost by trauma, congenital parts or replacing defective body parts, “Cultural Prosthetics” metaphorically provide enhancement of motor control in the form of physical and emotional cultural equilibrium.

Art workers are real workers with real jobs who are part of this country’s real economy in the same way that these students and many immigrants participate. In addition to providing jobs, the workshops will also introduce a traditional cultural craft connecting immigrants and migrants to their native country through a cultural/ethnic art making experience.

With regard to the craft of basketry as a way to make the prosthetics, I will be working with the Tarahumara Indians of Copper Canyon, Mexico. They are a large indigenous group which navigates between their traditional Raramuri lifestyle and the other which integrates more with the Christian Mexican culture. Much like immigrants in this country, they live in a space in between cultures where they fight hard to be able to continue their traditional crafts, preserve their cultural roots and dignity as they work to provide for their families.

Shedding light on the impact of emigration and tourism on craft making traditions in Mexico, a life-size replica of a tractor [and farming tools] in clay, instead of a tree, embodies the Olmec theme that explains the origins of life, representing a means of survival for immigrant agricultural workers in the US.

Businesses have long protected their interests by way of incorporation. Incorporation is a way of pooling resources and gaining protection against financial and legal risks. Most recently corporations have successfully sought to gain protection of their freedom of speech as individual entities. In this climate such a multinational an artist/artisan corporation makes sense. This corporation will do many things. It will produce art. It will use the form and the image of the branded multinational as a platform to address concerns about globalization and its effects on labor rights and international communities. But more importantly, this corporation will consolidate and expand many of her collaborative projects, giving their participants, members of the Spanish-speaking immigrant community in the US, the same rights and protection accorded to the shareholders and employees of other multinational concerns.

As Bertolt Brecht said: “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” This corporation is a way of engaging the world on progressive terms. It is a step towards protecting the real sources of culture, that is, people and their communities. Whereas the typical corporation seeks profit above all else, often by way of the exploitation of workers, communities, and natural resources, this corporation is founded on humanitarian principles. It will seek to make a profit for investors, but first it will seek to empower its employees. Some of the ways in which it will look after its employees include immersive training in art and artisanal production, fair wages, and necessary legal protections such as Foreign Worker’s visas. Over time they will be given the option to buy in as share-holders themselves.

Formally, this corporation will follow the traditional conventions of corporate structure. It will absorb financial risks, distribute financial dividends, and it will also allocate cultural, economic, and legal resources to its members. The executive committee will consist of collectors, investors, representatives from renowned art and cultural institutions, fund-raisers, and economic advisors from the private sector. The production teams will consist primarily of the individuals who collaborate with Margarita Cabrera on art production and research. These production teams comprise about ten people each. Some of these individuals are students and immigrant laborers. These groups will also include members of the communities from which these craft traditions arise. Obviously, this is a crucial aspect of the incorporation, as a multinational corporation will offer these people legal protections such as work visas and the ability to travel legally from the US to Mexico, and may in turn expedite the efforts of any seeking US naturalization.

In addition to its primary objective of producing salable works of art according to fair labor standards, this corporation will develop a US-Mexico cultural exchange structured along equitable and reciprocal terms. The Corporation will foster a particular kind of eco-tourism, that is structured travel to communities in Mexico for the intensive cultural research and development of new and ongoing projects. Members of production teams will study the folkways, artisanal methods, and craft traditions of different specific communities. For hosting these travel residencies (approximately two weeks at a time of immersion in local culture and traditions by a production team), these communities will be reimbursed in accordance to Fair Trade standards. What’s more, these communities and also Fair Trade organizations will have representatives in the corporation.

Community Outreach. Because these projects will involve direct participation from so many disparate and widely-reaching communities, we anticipate a huge potential for community outreach and, more than that, involvement. Additionally, there will be a great deal of educational components. Institutions will be encouraged to integrate their educational programs with workshop representatives.

Bicycles

Cars

Domestic and Appliances

Desert Plants

In Margarita Cabrera’s series of soft sculptures, threads left exposed serve as a reminder of the labor involved in the manufacturing of this subject matter. Sagging vinyl imbues the work with an anthropomorphic quality that references the harsh nature of worker’s realities.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Cabrera’s Artpace project, The Craft of Resistance, is the second in a series of works that explore the impact of border politics on Mexican craft-making traditions. The installation portrays the metamorphosis of Mexican tradition, history, and culture as a result of the current maquiladora-based economy.

Before establishing the first element of her Artpace installation—a makeshift factory in her Artpace studio—the artist traveled to Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán, Mexico, to research traditional copper craft-making techniques. While in Santa Clara, Cabrera worked with artisans and teachers at the craft school El SECATI to learn how to manipulate the metal.

Upon her arrival at Artpace, Cabrera put together a mock maquiladora, gathering a team of local volunteers to begin working on the assembly-line production of thousands of copper monarch butterflies. Her factory setup parallels the interior of maquiladoras found in Mexico with its fluorescent lighting and long makeshift tables. The workplace is divided into twelve schematic cubicles that guide volunteers through each step of the fabrication process.

After the team fashioned 2,500 butterflies, the small sculptures were packaged and exported to a private home in San Antonio, the second element of Cabrera’s Artpace project. Pictures of this installation are presented in the gallery, showing the beautiful, yet plague-like flock massed on chairs, tables, and appliances. The presentation of the insects in an area separate from the gallery symbolizes the disparity between the production of goods in maquiladoras and the consumption of Mexican-made products in the United States. Similarly, the swarm represents the manic transformation of the Mexican economy, expressing the threats posed by an oversaturated market (complicated by competitive Chinese labor) and the flight of the younger generation from rural to urban centers on both sides of the border.

The monarch butterfly is known for its lengthy annual migration, which spans North America, from Canada to sanctuaries in Michoacán. For Cabrera, the perseverance of these insects draws a direct parallel to the perilous journey of thousands of Mexican immigrants to the United States. The copper sculptures are imprinted with the wing pattern of the monarch butterfly on one side and with an impression of the American penny on the other. This design emphasizes the influence of American currency on the cultural and economic climate of Mexico.

-Emily Morrison

Artpace Curatorial Assistant

On view January 16- February 18, 2010 at Box 13 Artspace in Houston, Texas

Margarita Cabrera with Esmeralda Perez, Teresa Sanchez Garay, Doris Lindo, Nora Oviedo, Carlos Calles, Miguel DeLuna, Maria Lopez, Candelaria Cabrera y Delfina Medina.

SPACE IN BETWEEN is a collaborative project in the form of a sewing and embroidery workshop at Houston’s Box 13 Gallery. The title is inspired by the term Nepantla, which in the Nahuatl Aztec Language references “the space in the middle” as it relates to marginalized cultures and their resistance strategies of survival. Gloria Anzaldua, scholar, activist, and author of Borderlands/La Frontera, views Nepantla as a reference to living in the borderlands or crossroads, and the process of creating alternative spaces in which to live, function, or create.

Cabrera’s work continues an ongoing exploration of the defining economic relationship between the United States and Mexico. She is interested in creating an aesthetic platform for political and social-cultural consciousness as a means of survival.

The project is structured in three parts:

First, given the history of the BOX13 space as a SINGER sewing machine showroom, sewing school and repair/factory, a community workshop will produce numerous sculptural replicas of desert plants that are indigenous to the Southwestern United States, the most frequently traveled route of immigration into the U.S. Sewn together out of border patrol uniforms, and planted in traditional Mexican terra cotta pots, these sculptural plants render the role of border patrol officers as the protagonists in the American landscape.

A second focus is the attempt to re-introduce and/or maintain an ethnic connection with vital cultural Mexican craft traditions. Members of migrating communities from Mexico living in the Houston Community will be invited to work with traditional sewing and embroidery techniques from Los Tenangos, Hidalgo, Mexico. Traditionally in mural form, the embroidery from Tenango de Doria Hidalgo, employs colorful narrative renditions reflecting popular culture, traditional rituals and myths of the Otomi indigenous communities. Sometimes appropriating and other times reclaiming these techniques, immigrant workers will use it to relay their own personal border crossing experience. This embroidered narrative element will be combined in creative ways with the desert plants.

Thirdly, the production areas are divided into four parts consisting of a cutting area, a sewing area, an embroidery area, and a construction area.

The work being produced and gradually displayed is primarily made from Border Patrol uniforms resulting in sculptures that represent desert plants that embody personal immigrant stories. The workers sharing in this labor and its rewards (Cabrera is sharing proceeds from sales with the craftsmen/women) are coming to this project from *The Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center.

All areas are open to interested volunteers (children welcome in the company of their parents) Mondays and Wednesdays from 10- 3 and Saturday 1-5.

Curated by Eleanor L Williams and coordinated by Elizabeth Murray.

*The Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center is a safe space for low-wage workers to gather and learn about their rights in the workplace, organize to improve conditions at work, network for various social services, file complaints with government agencies, meet with attorneys and connect with community allies. The Center also mobilizes the religious community on issues and campaigns to improve wages, benefits and working conditions for low-wage workers.

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ESPACIO ENTRE CULTURAS
Margarita Cabrera, Esmeralda Perez, Teresa Sanchez, Doris Lindo, Nora Oviedo, Carlos Calles, Miguel DeLuna, Maria Lopez, Candelaria Cabrera, y Delfina Medina.

Espacio entre culturas es un proyecto de colaboracion ,que toma la forma de un taller de Costura y Bordado en la Galeria Box 13 de Houston. El titulo esta inspirado por la palabra Nepantla que en el idioma Nahuatl de los Aztecas, quiere decir: “el espacio entre dos”, especialmente referido a -culturas marginadas y a su resistencia a las estrategias de sobrevivencia-’ Gloria Anzaldua, educadora, activista y autora de “La Frontera/Borderlands, ve, en la palabra Nepantla, una referencia a vivir en las fronteras o cruces de caminos; y al proceso de crear espacios alternos en los cuales se pueda vivir, funcionar y crear.

El trabajo de Margarita Cabrera expande la continua exploracion de como definir la relacion social y economica entre Estados Unidos y Mexico. Ella esta interesada en crear una plataforma aestetica para crear una conciencia -politica y socio-cultural -como un medio de fucion entre estas dos culturas.

El proyecto esta estructurado en 3 areas. La primera dada la historia de Box 13 como un espacio de exibicion para la maquina de Coser Singer, una Escuela de Costureras y un Taller de Reparacion, el proyecto “Espacio Entre Culturas” producira numerosas esculturas de plantas del desierto abundantes en el suroeste de los Estados Unidos, que es ademas la ruta mas frecuentemente utilizada por los imigrantes hacia Estados Unidos. Utilizando las telas procedentes de los uniformes de la Policia Fronteriza y presentadas en macetas de terracota original de Mexico, estas esculturas de plantas del desierto, representan la presencia de los oficiales de la patrulla fronteriza como protagonistas de este fenomeno de la realidad Americana.

La segunda se enfoca en el intento de re-introducir o mantener un contacto etnico con la tradicion de artesania que son vitales en la cultura Mexicana. Miembros de diferentes comunidades indigenas que hoy son parte de la comunidad de Houston, seran invitados a trabajar utilizando tecnicas de coser y bordar originales de Tenango, Hidalgo, Mexico. En forma de murales ,la tradicion de Tenango de Doria Hidalgo, emplea un estilo narrativo que utiliza cientos de colores, que reflejan la cultura popular, los rituales y los mitos de las comunidades Otomies de la region central de Mexico. Estos artesanos usaran estas tecnicas mezcladas con su estilo propio o bien utilizandola en forma pura, para describir sus eperiencias personales durante el proceso de emigraion. Este estilo de bordado narativo sera plasmado creativamente en el diseno de esas esculturas.

La tercera area es la produccion, que quedara dividida en cuatro areas. La pimera de corte, la segunda de coser, otra de bordar, y finalmente una de formacion.

Los artesanos que participan en este proyecto han sido referidos por el “Houston Interfaith Workers Justice Center”. Todas las areas de trabajo estan abiertas a voluntarios (hijos de participantes con sus padres son bienvenidos). Los horarios son de Lunes y Miercoles de 10am-3pm y Sabados de 1pm-5pm.

El Centro de Justicia al Trabajador es una organizacion que garantiza seguridad a todo tipo de trabajadores y donde se les enseña a entender los derechos y obligaciones en su trabajo. Se les ofrece asesoria y apollo legal para mejorar sus condiciones laborales, obtener servicios y presenta quejas.