LAS HISTORIAS and BAC 2021 Artist Fellowship Showcase
BAC 2021 Artist Fellowship Showcase
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Dara Preciado : Las Historias
Las historias son muy importantes. Stories are very important.
Stories have the power to connect with others. Every story is unique and precious. That is the
reason why I decided to document five different persons whose stories began in Mexico and
how they resettled in Douglas, AZ. Through this work I wanted to embrace the Mexican heritage, culture and most importantly their experience. I used found paper and collaged it on canvas, oils to paint the portraits, and also incorporated fabric. The found paper represents the multi colors used in Mexican culture, also the favorite
colors of the individual. Within the collage is a map of Arizona where the borderline is portrayed. The portrait represents the storyteller, the fence depicts the borderline and the side details portray a specific object that represents the individual.
My project is an interactive installation and a photobook that presents a series of photographs of the US-Mexico border showing only captures from the Mexico side due to border crossing restrictions for non-essential travel due to Covid-19. For these reasons, my focus was my city, Agua Prieta, Sonora Mexico. My main intention is to tell a different narrative from the one that dominates the border violence and insecurity. There are images of people, places or simply moments that represent border life from my point of view; as a land of migrants, a fusion of cultures but mainly as my safe space. The interactive installation is a blanket-fort made with a camping tent pillows and personal objects that symbolize the border as my home and safe space. Inside the fort there is a television showing the video Plaza de la Frontera and slides from the phonebook. For the phonebook I opted to use analog photography, (camera: Mamiya RB67, 120mm film, Olympus mju II 35mmfilm) in contemporary situations in hopes of evoking feelings of nostalgia, warmth and border pride. This documentation was also made with the intention of preserving the history of Agua Prieta; the photobook includes paintings by Stephany Zimarripa and the interviews on which it was based, transcripts of the Plaza de la Frontera video and historical cornicles written by Alexxa Gerardo.
Artist: Geo Maybe
Fashion Designer
Head Curator
The people of the borderlands have created a culture made up of two, taking what we like and need from both places. To get inspiration, I did interviews with people with different characteristics, but all with mixed culture, not divided. Each of these people told me their personal story and from there I could notice so many things in common such as ̈the need to stay in the middle ̈, one person mentioned. This series of paintings has the purpose of growing, since in each painting it exemplifies a little of how much we form. All are oil paintings and each one is planned with sketches and previous strokes to obtain harmonic frames. My intention is that the viewer has a memory, a feeling of longing and nostalgia for what he is, was or lived, the same feeling that seeing photographs causes us. This is why the paintings are inspired by my photographs and each one tells us a little about how much we share.
To continue with the integration of people into my work, I will make a painting at the precise moment of the exhibition, asking and writing on the canvas the words that we decided to make our own as border lines, the so-called Spanglish.
Hidden Colors
A dance performance based upon my life through revealing my true colors. My performance
starts with the beginning of my childhood. A mask to hide my face from the real world as I
search to find my path. Along with this mask I will hold a black box filled with personal items
such as dolls and barbies I admired as a child. Through these dolls I lived out my fantasy. I WAS
living through them. They were the only outlet I had to fully express myself away from the rest of
the world. The black box was an escape from locking myself in my room, isolated from the
world. I was happiest here with my thoughts and myself, only to reveal my true colors inside the
box. It wasn’t until later on in life when I began to express myself through art , makeup, and
contemporary dance. The feeling it gave me to be on a stage was liberating and free. From
ballet, to contemporary, and even hip-hop.
Following my first segment, a presentation is based on the self-discovery I had as a new drag
performer. The feeling drag gave me (and still does) was unlike any art form I’ve ever
experienced. The makeup, the glitter, the fringe, the sparkles were as if all of my self-taught art
skills were coming together as one.