#round41

Migration is? art installation by Monica Villarreal at Project Row Houses

Migrant workers have played a key role in the development of what we now call the United States. As the number of migrant workers from Latin America continues to rise, discourse surrounding these migrations focuses on their value as human beings by treating their bodies as exploitable commodities. The intention of Migration is? is to address and reframe this discussion by examining migration from the underrepresented perspective of the migrant. I will present a series of works exploring the experiences of Latin America migrant works through the use of printmaking, installations, large-scale paintings, and live performances.  I want to analyze the treatment of migrant works and shift discourse from their worth as commoditized bodies to their intrinsic value as human beings.

Round 41: Process and Action: An Exploration of Ideas is just as the title states. Round 41 explores the ways in which contemporary artists deal with labor-intensive practices by highlighting the artistic process, which can be both intuitive and strategic, and the Labor issues (female inequality, immigration, etc.) that have influenced their work and inevitably shape a community, like Third Ward, and society at-large. Round 41 developed by starting with a set of questions: How does the artistic process relate to Labor issues? How do artists discuss the labor related practices within their work? How does an artist view their labor-intensive process relative to the labor practices that a non-artist experiences every day? How does the average worker in Third Ward (and beyond) connect to an artist around issues of Labor? While labor-intensive practice and issues surrounding Labor are two very different themes, this Round attempts to bridge them as a means to explore the aforementioned questions and others that arise in-process. Invited artists will activate the art houses by showing work that is process oriented, engage with the mothers of the Young Mothers Residential Program to explore Labor issues from their perspective, and speak to the broader themes of Labor that their practices generate.

Photos by Alex Barber

SONGS OF MIGRANT WORKERS – Friday, November 7, 2014

Project Row Houses, 2515 Holman St, Houston, TX 77004

Please join us for a special performance by Nick Gaitan and Roberto Rodriguez III as they play traditional Mexican conjunto music of original songs that depict real life stories of migrant workers. Performance curated by Monica Villarreal