Festival Latinoamericano, 2024. Arlington VA.
Sharing the art and stories of our Latino PAUSErs who made time to explore creativity at the Columbia Pike Studio and share it with others!
At Festival Latinoamericano 2024, through a booklet (below) and an accompanying exhibit, we share the art and stories of the Studio’s Latino PAUSErs who made time to explore creativity at the Columbia Pike Studio. We also include photos and stories from the Columbia Pike Documentary Project and present oral history videos of Latinos in our community. This has been possible thanks to two 2023-24 grants: Arlington Arts and Arlington’s Historic Preservation Program.
The theme of the four exhibits during 2023-24 was “Me, Here:” Stories of People & Place. It is what artists, dancers, poets, writers, and also people who don’t call themselves any of these, have shared because it helps them tell their story to the wider Arlington community.
The Studio PAUSE Festival Latinoamericano 2024 booklet
The one-sheet foldable booklet, designed by Sushmita Mazumdar, is an art activity the Studio is presenting at the festival. “Words to Art” has been something Sushmita always thinks about, so here she made the word 2024 into an artwork and invites people to color it in. Once that is colored in, she will show them how this sheet of paper gets folded and cut to become a booklet they can take home! Below is the English version, and the Spanish version is for the festival activity.
A visitor colors in the artwork created with the numbers 2024. The sound of color pencils has a very calming effect on people, and adults are often surprised by this experience. However, many children know this well.
Enjoy our photos from the amazing experience of Studio PAUSE being at the Festival Latinoamericano! Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen including the Arlington County staff! And a BIG thanks to the PAUSErs for showing up and talking to visitors about their work displayed in the exhibit and for sharing their stories and inspiration.
Nick sets up the monitors to show 5 stories of Latino community from our We Are Barcroft oral history video project
So cool to see Saul Reyes’s new shirt showing off his Salvadorean heritage and Milagro's delantal showing off her's! Saul is the exec director of Bu-Gata, one of our amazing partners at the Studio
Visitor learns how our one-page bookmaking activity becomes a booklet cataloging the art and stories in our exhibit "Me, Here:" Stories of People & Place.
A granddaughter encouraged her grandma to color as well.
Friends having a blast doing something they had never done before.
Visitors speak with Ruben Dario Sira who shares about his photograph "Under Barcroft Sky" and his poem "Paqenna Estrella" (Little Star) on display.
Girasol O'Neill, aka Mr. Sol to his students, shares the work of his students from Tuckahoe Elementary to whom he taught some kinds of art of Mexico like Jalisco dresses and Alebrijes. He taught visitors too how to make the dresses and it was such a hit.
PAUSEr Jorge Rogachevsky and his wife Julia make the booklet which Jorge translated into Spanish for us for the event.
PAUSEr Victor shares his pride in his first paintings ever even as he has been a singer, songwriter, performer and so much more for all his life.
Visitors at our exhibit seeing the rich range of stories and creativity of our Latino community.
A young visitor watches Marco's oral history video and as I urged Marco to go say hi to him, the boy was so surprised. "You are this guy," he asked. "Yes!" Marco beamed, experiencing the power of sharing his story with the public, a first for him.
A group photo with the artists, writers, and those from the Studio who shared their stories, plus the young residents of Barcroft Apartments who have made art and shared stories with them.
Ruben and Victor start talking, sharing stories of their lives, and end up showing me photos of their wonderful moms. How amazing and so sorry for a bad photo of the screens but look at the great shot of the smiles!!
Dewey Tron, director of our oral history videos, and Jorge, our Spanish language interviewer and translator.
"My son and husband made them so it's ok," many moms told me yesterday. Here one mom shows off the work of the guys in her family. :)
Ruben helped me by translating the instructions to my bookmaking as I taught Spanish speakers. Soon he was teaching them himself! "After a couple of times doing it, and I got it," he said. Its a different part of our brain that's being used, we discussed. A scientist, told me how this is engineering, and of course it is—paper engineering!
Melanie found her friend Sarah Manrique Chiriboga in our exhibit and was so excited.
Seeing visitors using their catalog booklet to enjoy the exhibit just makes all the work we put into this worth every minute. This is community art by and for the community!
Lastly, the dad who finally agreed to make the book with me even as his daughters completed theirs. As he colored Ruben and I watched him get to that space of peace and focus. He didn't know that his girls had gone over to Sol's table and were working on new activities, as it was just him, the pencils, the book. But we kept an eye on them.
Thank you LouLou for helping to make this happen!
And thank you, Sol, for your art activity, which was so much fun for everyone!