Shey Things

Shey Rivera Rios, AS220 Artistic Director believes that PVDFest not only celebrates Providence’s diverse and vibrant community, but also supports local artists to realize their dreams of creating...

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What do you remember most fondly about Foo Fests past? Oh, so many things – what I love is that the core focus is on LOCAL artists and local entrepreneurs and food vendors, so you walk in and see all these folks who are involved with the community. It’s a great snapshot of what’s going on locally

“Unfortunately, as we all know, that’s not a unique situation,” said Shey Rivera, artistic director of AS220, an arts center in Providence, Rhode Island, during her keynote speech Friday before an audience of Latino artists and arts administrators gathered at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center for the National Association for Latino Arts and Culture’s 30th Regional Arts Training Workshop. Rivera was referencing the recent controversy that erupted when the Guadalupe withdrew as the host of the 2016 Contemporary Art Month Perennial exhibition in March because of a lack of Latina artists in the all-female show. Hernandez said she and Gamez are hoping to tour the show to keep the conversation about representation going and “to (make) sure that it’s a priority on people’s minds and that it didn’t just spark and fizzle out.” Cultural organizations like the Guadalupe arose in the 1970s and early 1980s because “very deserving, very legitimate (Latino) artists were having a hard time sort of penetrating into mainstream arts and culture institutions,” said Jerry Ruiz, executive director of the Guadalupe. “Right now, the single most important thing, the biggest issue facing the Latino arts field is this issue of cultural equity, of us not having the resources that we need to help artists to produce work, maintain the work, for our organizations to really be able to thrive,” de León said.