BmoreArt’s Picks: November 30 – December 6
BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas.
This Week: We are featuring online events that you can participate in from the comfort of your own couch and some that you can safely leave the house for, plus a few calls for entry to get involved locally and nationally. Stay home, stay healthy, stay engaged in the arts.
BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
Edgar Reyes: They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds
Tuesday, November 30 • 7pm
presented by CULTIVATE
CULTIVATE is pleased to present a guided discussion led by Baltimore-based Mexican American artist Edgar Reyes on the power and knowledge that can be shared through plants. Reyes shares how indigenous plants, food, and language have influenced his practice. He analyzes the distinct ways in which myths and colonial perspectives have created hybrid traditions and beliefs.
Reyes’ work has been centered around reflecting on his family’s history and the distinct places they have called home, documenting their stories and collecting photos from family archives and Mexican street markets. His interest lies in the mementos people cherish and the layers of loss endured from migration and the passing of loved ones. “To me,” says Reyes, “our most precious memories play a vital role in helping us cope with loss and displacement. Many of the pieces that I have created are filled with visual layers that represent the hope and pain we have, and continue to endure, as many of us seek refuge. The imagery alludes to my ancestral past and my family’s spiritual connection with plants.”
About: Edgar Reyes is a multimedia artist based in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. area. Reyes earned his M.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art and has taught at non-profit organizations, schools, and museums. Many of his projects are autobiographical and a reflection of his personal journey as an undocumented youth in the United States. Reyes is driven by the desire to raise an awareness and question the displacement of his community.
He explores how the blending of Indigenous and European traditions is an ongoing process of conquest and resistance. His art practice highlights the beauty of being Mexican American and questions his national and cultural traditions. He challenges social norms to express what it means for him to be labeled Latino. His art making is centered around building compassion and understanding regarding the complex history of forced and voluntary resettlement throughout the Americas. http://reyesedgar.com
About CULTIVATE: Cultivate is an evolving collection of interdisciplinary artists, writers, and researchers driven by investigations of landscape, place, and the commons. Projects include experimental and practical art explorations that wrestle with the qualities, perceptions, and layers of experience that inform and expand notions of landscape. Ideas from a full spectrum of voices across generations are supported using sustainable tactics. From the hyper-local to the global, Cultivate reflects individual and collective curiosity, intention, imagining, and engagement with the phenomena of landscape.
Location: Shifting virtual and analog locations in watersheds around the globe with physical bases in the Washington, D. C. metro area, Montana, and Italy.
RSVP for zoom link: https://www.cultivateprojects.net/edgar-reyes
For information or images, please contact Susan Main at 301-943-4190 or cultivate@cultivateprojects.net.
Artist Panel Discussion hosted by our Resident Artist Hannah Brancato
Thursday, December 2 • 12pm
presented by Montgomery College
The Montgomery College Visual and Performing Arts Department of the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus presents Fall Semester 2021 artists’ panel discussion featuring artists Nuala Cabral, Alexis Flanagan, Ignacio G Hutìa Rivera, Samara Ama Chandra, and Jadelynn St Dre. The artists’ panel discussion will be at 12:00 PM on Thursday, December 2. This event will be held via ZOOM webinar. Please go to the Arts Institute page to register for this artists’ panel discussion. This event is free and open to the public.
About: Move Slowly is a series of conversations with anti-sexual violence activists, about the resilience and care that it takes to change culture and continue building on a movement to end sexual and intimate partner violence. For this panel discussion, the interviewees will discuss how our experiences working to end sexual violence might offer insights and guidance for young activists working on any issue.
Hannah Brancato’s practice is grounded in collective storytelling, and the creation of public rituals to bring people’s stories together. Currently, she is documenting the role of art in social justice work through her creative and teaching practice.
Participating Artists:
Nuala Cabral is an educator, activist, and award-winning filmmaker, who has produced films about gender-based violence and helped young people create films about the topic. Her film Walking Home (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Qpi-fW6jAf), about street harassment, became her entry point to activism and organizing over a decade ago.
Alexis Flanagan is a cultural worker, writer, painter, healer, community organizer, and non-profit leader working at the intersection of art and activism in the DC Metropolitan Area. Alexis is currently the Assistant Director of HopeWorks of Howard County, a dual sexual assault and domestic violence center in Columbia, Maryland.
Ignacio G Hutía Xeiti Rivera prefers the gender-neutral pronoun, They, is an Activist, Writer, Educator, Sex(ual) Healer, Filmmaker, Performance Artist and Mother. Ignacio has over 20 years of experience on multiple fronts, including economic justice, anti-racist and anti-violence work, as well as mujerista, LGBTQI and sex positive movements.
Sanahara Ama Chandra is a sound healer, professional singer, griot, activist, nurse, and mama of two. She is a truth seeker and Warrior who creates Medicine songs – simple catchy rhythms and messages that easily reset people to a place of love.
Jadelynn St Dre is a facilitator, trauma therapist and interdisciplinary performance artist, based out of Durham, NC and the Bay Area, CA. She has worked within the antiviolence movement for over a decade, seeking to uplift the voices of those often forgotten or silenced within the mainstream movement.
