Rutas: Routing Roots Catalog

Rutas: Routing Roots An ephemeral installation for Heart of the City at 516 ARTS

Rutas: Routing Roots A collaboration between Working Classroom & 516 ARTS

LEAD ARTIST Celia Alvarez Muñoz APPRENTICES Carlos Gabaldon Shannon Jones Pauline Martinez Lizbeth Miscles Angel Pavia Izaiah Ramos Marco Rivera

Residency/Workshop: January 10 – 31, 2014 Exhibition: February 1 – May 3, 2014

Dedicated to Nan Elsasser, Founding Director of Working Classroom, on the occasion of her retirement

Exploring the Barelas Neighborhood Young artists at Working Classroom collaborated with nationally renowned artist Celia Alvarez Muñoz to conceptualize, research and create an art installation that reflected upon the identity of the historic, working class neighborhood of Barelas. Students sourced imagery and ideas from city planning and development, city maps, demographic shifts and effecting results, and gave the student artists an investment in the political fabric of their city.

4th Street, the main artery that connects Downtown to the Barelas commercial corridor, was originally developed around the Route 66/Camino Real trade passage. With the construction of Civic Plaza, which diverted street traffic from the neighborhood, and the closing of the Rail Yards in the 1970s, economic development and trade largely evaporated for the neighborhood and it was designated as a “pocket of poverty” district.

Although long-time residents have been resilient, the community is now faced with opportunities for much needed re-investment. One of the questions that this project asks is: How does the Latino and Hispanic identity of the neighborhood fit into the vision for re-vitalization?

Alvarez Muñoz says, “This project broadened the students’ notion of what constitutes a city, distinct neighborhoods and the role that citizenry can play in that process. The transformation of information into an art form has exposed them to the poetics of interpretation through the use of language, signage and metaphor.”

4th Street in Barelas, Downtown Albuquerque, photo by Michael Lorenzo López

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The Calling: Awareness = Validation

by Celia Alvarez Muñoz I was very happy to be invited by Working Classroom and 516 ARTS to participate in Heart of the City, an arts collaboration led by 516 ARTS which focused on the urban environment and Downtown as the heart of Albuquerque. For this project, we chose to respond to the redevelopment plans along Albuquerque’s historic central route of El Camino Real juxtaposed with the popular car culture Route 66. It was a pleasure to be literally back in the classroom working with a dream team of seven students from Working Classroom, an after-school arts program in the Barelas neighborhood adjacent to the two routes.

I respond to projects that have an inherent historical edge. This interest started with a large solo installation call Postales for The Tyler Museum of Art in the late 1980s. A response to the evident demographic shifts and displacement resulting from the 1960s settlement of a one hundred year dispute between Mexico and the U.S. on the border cities of El Paso, Texas, my hometown until 1969, and Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande River.

Our project, titled Rutas: Routing Roots, was a journey of discovery and validation based on research about the importance of Albuquerque’s place in history. Just as the story of the place reveals positive as well as negative adjustments to accommodate physical changes, so does it reveal the citizenry that it affects. A major part of the workshop concentrated on becoming familiar with the historic Barelas neighborhood and finding parallels between the immediate demographics and the history of the students themselves – their reasons for living in Albuquerque, their families’ contribution to the economics of the city and how redevelopment might affect them. As teenagers, they are growing into becoming contributing members of society.

The process of conceptualizing a form of expression, how to tell the story and how to interpret new-found information into an art form, or “the stuff of art,” was the meat of a three-week workshop. We started with brainstorming and accumulating data, prioritizing and editing through

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writing. The story of mapping and rerouting pathways gave way to questioning which stories were true and whether myth had any part in the development of the history.

We jumped on the word “myth” and digitally appropriated and designed thematic imagery for wall paintings. The students edited their stories into prose poetry rendered in adhesive vinyl letters. These formally criss-cross the story told by the images. The hanging metal green street signs tell a tale of assimilation as intersections of language. A color pallet of green tints hints and questions the notion of progress. Thus, the combination of elements, color, word, image and sculpture, provocatively and eloquently interpret the universal story of development and redevelopment.

The importance of design in a group exhibition was prevalently discussed and studied. Seriously considered was the “noise” level of the our installation in dialogue with the all the other gallery installations in the group exhibition for Heart of the City. It was decided that the doctrine of “less is more” was most contemplatively suitable.

A conceptual and multimedia artist known for her writing, photography, painting, installation and public art, Celia Alvarez Muñoz has been invited to exhibit and to create site-specific works for more than fifty major U.S. museums and was included in the 1991 Whitney Biennial. In her work, Alvarez Muñoz draws on family and communal memories to explore her own experiences growing up Catholic and Mexican American on the Texas–Mexico border, as well as larger issues concerning the spaces between languages and cultures and the histories that connect place to community.

Photo by Anna Muñoz Photography

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In the ancient Anasazi legend The trickster spider traps the snake By tying each stretched segment As it reaches for the stars – Angel Pavia

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Angel Pavia & team

Roads that have developed To build new paths for us.

New opportunities, new memories.

But please leave a permanent path To go back to where it all started. – Shannon Jones

Carlos Gabaldon & team

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Barelas, the neighborhood Born of the 1600’s Original Land Grants Next to the Rio Grande Became sandwiched between the 1880’s industrial Railroads and downtown Albuquerque Will it be Albuquerque’s Phoenix?

Or remain the city’s myth?

– Celia Alvarez Muñoz

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Shannon Jones, Celia Alvarez Muñoz & team

As a one-year-old Mexican immigrant I was raised in Albuquerque Now, 18 years old I recognize the once powerful Rail Road Yards Giant of Barelas Slumbering since its 1950’s decline.

Limbs outstretched It makes its once irrefutable position known In Albuquerque. – Carlos Gabaldon

Angel Pavia & team

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Isaiah Ramos & Pauline Martinez

Isaiah Ramos & Pauline Martinez

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When I came to Albuquerque from Texas This place was new to me.

Now it’s old and unreal.

Let’s recreate it better than I remember it.

Find hope in the restoration of Barelas Make it the Camino Real!

– Izaiah Ramos

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Isaiah Ramos & team

1972 Creation of Civic Plaza The loneliness that we created Forced by the blowing strength of money 2007 From old railroads Gentrification comes for the relocated people Is there hope for good? – Marco Rivera

Lizbeth Miscles & team

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During the first re-birth of Barelas in the 1980s Working Classroom was established.

It has helped me stay connected

to my Mexican culture Like adding chile spice to all my memories It is who I am – Lizbeth Miscles

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Marco Rivera & team

The once main road, Route 66 Led the people to it, in 1937, here in Barelas It has now, turned slow and quiet Because it was re-routed Once so loud and full.

That road is so distant to me now So slow and quiet It is like we have vanished. – Pauline Martinez

Pauline Martinez & team

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516 ARTS 516 ARTS, known for its leadership of collaborations large and small, is a nonprofit arts and education organization founded in 2006 to attract audiences to Downtown Albuquerque for arts and cultural activities.

Its mission is to forge connections between art and audiences, and the vision is to be an active partner in developing the cultural landscape of Albuquerque and New Mexico. Its values are inquiry, diversity, collaboration and accessibility. 516 ARTS offers programs that inspire curiosity, dialogue, risk-taking and creative experimentation, showcasing established, emerging, local, national and international artists from a variety of cultural backgrounds. www.516arts.org

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Working Classroom Working Classroom is a multi-ethnic, inter-generational community of student and professional artists, writers, actors and directors with a conscious commitment to supporting new and diverse voices and visions in the arts. The underrepresentation and caricature of historically ignored communities hampers our understanding of who we are as a nation, how we interpret our past and contemplate our future. Working Classroom contributes to a more nuanced understanding of American identity. www.workingclassroom.org

Left to right: Carlos Gabaldon, Shannon Jones, Angel Pavia, Lisbeth Miscles, Marco Rivera, Isaiah Ramos, Pauline Martinez, Celia Alvarez Mu単oz

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Upper left: Isaiah Ramos & Pauline Martinez. Upper right: Marco Rivera & Shannon Jones Lower left: Celia Alvarez Mu単oz & Lisbeth Miscles. Lower right: Lisbeth Miscles & Carlos Gabaldon

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Celia Alvarez Mu単oz & team, Barelas / Bar Ellas Street Signs, installation view at opening reception, vinyl on metal, sculptural component of the installation Rutas: Routing Roots Front & back cover: Celia Alvarez Mu単oz & team, Barelas / Bar Ellas Street Signs

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THANK YOU! Rutas: Routing Roots was made possible in part by: Bernalillo County The City of Albuquerque The FUNd of Albuquerque Community Foundation Special thanks: Basement Films Sarah Brown Stubblefield Screenprint Company Heart of the City was made possible in part by: Bernalillo County The City of Albuquerque: Cultural Services Department Public Art & Urban Enhancement Program 1% for Art The FUNd of Albuquerque Community Foundation McCune Charitable Foundation NPN/Visual Artists Network New Mexico Arts, A Division of the Office of Cultural Affairs UNM College of Fine Arts

Richard R. Berry Mayor

© 2014, 516 ARTS Published by 516 ARTS, 516 Central Avenue SW, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87102 505-242-1445, www.516arts.org Design: Suzanne Sbarge • Production support: Alima Lopez

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